The Socialist Party Debates: The Tendency For The Rate Of Profit To Fall Vs Underconsumptionism.

The VOAG can’t help but notice the growing debate inside the Socialist Party (SP). The VOAG’s inbox had just quietened down following an avalanche of emails during the recent SWP splits. Now it seems it’s the Socialist Party’s turn to spam the living daylights out of us all.

The VOAG has already heard rumours of people being banned from the Socialist Party’s International Summer School, now I understand the SP’s NC is removing members from the SP Facebook group and banning all discussion relating to Marxist economics. (1)

As Bruce Wallace, one of the leading dissidents put it: “Under the pretext of agreeing to comradely debate, the critical material of oppositionists is being censored and repressed while public attacks on us are made by the leadership”. How SWP. (2)

And just like the SWP debacle, the argument is being conflated with a general dissatisfaction with internal party democracy. One dissident quotes Lenin: “Criticism within the limits of the principles of the Party Programme must be quite free, not only at Party meetings, but also at public meetings. Such criticism, or such “agitation” (for criticism is inseparable from agitation) cannot be prohibited”

What’s it all about.
 At the root of the argument are different perspectives regarding the relative importance in Crisis Theory (why capitalism goes into cyclical recessions) of “The Tendancy For The Rate Of Profit To Fall” (TRPF) and “Overacculation /Underconsumption”. Another SP dissident, calling himself Crucial Steve, writes on his blog:

“According to Lyn Walsh [editor of the SP’s monthly Socialism Today], the current crisis is one of over accumulation and lack of demand. Peter Taaffe writes in issue number 157 “The capitalists refuse to invest because there is no ‘profitable outlet’. In this sense, it is a crisis of ‘profitability’. Not because profits have dropped or there is a ‘tendency’ for the rate of profit to decline. Both the rate and the absolute amount of profit have increased it seems, even during this terrible crisis”.” (3)

Crucial Steve (Steve Dobbs) counters: “Marx was very clear that the accumulation of capital and the Tendency of the Rate of Profit to Fall were in fact “two expressions of the same process”. As capital accumulates, the organic composition [fixed capital over variable capital] rises and the rate of profit tends to fall. Thus to speak of over accumulation without reference to the rate of profit is somewhat “one-sided”, shall we say.

Cde. Crucial sets out his stall: “According to the statistics, the rate and the absolute amount of profit have not increased as the SP would have it. As anyone who has worked with management in the private sector will tell you, capitalists are concerned with the rate of return. So naturally, the projected rate of profit will determine investment. A fall in return and a subsequent fall in investment can also lead to a drop in the mass of profits. We can see empirically that the fall in the mass of profits precedes a fall in investment prior to a recession”.

Crucial quotes Walsh in Socialism Today No.161: “How, as socialists, should we regard a stimulus package or programme of public works? In the face of mass unemployment and the prospect of prolonged economic stagnation, the leaders of workers’ organisations should indeed be calling for a massive programme of public works to provide jobs and stimulate growth. Effective economic stimulus would require a big increase in social spending, increasing pensions and other benefits. Tax rates for the wealthy and big corporations should be substantially increased, with a levy on the uninvested cash piles of big companies. Effective measures should be taken against tax evasion and avoidance”. (4)

The SP’s official position, that the current crisis is one of over accumulation and lack of demand, implies that the answer is to inflate the economy by increasing salaries and public spending, in order to spend ones way out of crises. In other words, classic Keynesianism. We at The VOAG reject this approach and agree with Marx, that capitalism has structural contradictions that cannot be resolved by keynesian economics or reformism.

Socialist Fight breaks it down.
To get some help understanding this argument, let’s visit the pages of this month’s Socialist Fight:
Let us first of all set out the proposition according to Marx: “The progressive tendency of the general rate of profit to fall is, therefore, just an expression peculiar to the capitalist mode of production of the progressive development of the social productivity of labour. This does not mean to say that the rate of profit may not fall temporarily for other reasons. But proceeding from the nature of the capitalist mode of production, it is thereby proved a logical necessity that in its development the general average rate of surplus-value must express itself in a falling general rate of profit. Since the mass of the employed living labour is continually on the decline as compared to the mass of materialised labour set in motion by it, i.e., to the productively consumed means of production, it follows that the portion of living labour, unpaid and congealed in surplus-value, must also be continually on the decrease compared to the amount of value represented by the invested total capital. Since the ratio of the mass of surplus-value to the value of the invested total capital forms the rate of profit, this rate must constantly fall”. Karl Marx, Capital vol. 3, chapter 13.

TFRP is the central plank of Marx’s revolutionary economic theories. He formed his theory in opposition to the closely related theories of the so-called “iron law of wages” and underconsumptionism, and sharply counter-posed TFRP to them. The Iron Law of Wages is a proposed law of economics that asserts that real wages always tend, in the long run, toward the minimum wage necessary to sustain the life of the worker. Karl Marx attribute the doctrine to Lassalle (notably in his Critique of the Gotha Programme, 1875), but credited the idea to Thomas Malthus in his work, An Essay on the Principle of Population.

Marx did not have several theories of capitalist crisis, he had one: TFRP. Marx attacked the “iron law of wages” in two lectures to the international Working Men’s Association in 1865. The argument was that the “iron law” meant the absolute immiseration of the working class which led to a lack of demand for commodities and hence a crisis pushing prices below the value of commodities finally squeezing profits.

This is closely allied to underconsumptionism. Of course it has an immediate reformist implication; there is a Keynesian solution to the crisis of capitalism. All we need to do is raise wages and pump more money into the economy and the crisis will be solved. The underconsumptionist tells us there is plenty of money available but the capitalists just won’t invest. So implicitly all we have to do is force them to do so or get the government to do so on their behalf. It is this reformist conclusion that Bruce Wallace has correctly identified in the line of both the CWI and the CPGB. The notion that they won’t invest because the rate of profit is too low is beyond them.

The point about TFRP is that it is a revolutionary theory; capitalism is in crisis because it has these fatal structural flaws; private ownership of the means of production and a system of production for individual profit which has this inescapable tendency to fall and halt production through lack of investment. Only a rationally planned socialised economy based on production for need will overcome the ever recurring [and increasing] crises of capitalism. War on a global scale is the only thing that will temporarily solve this crisis for the capitalists; a much smaller group of monopoly capitalists will now have their profits rates restored before they fall again and the next conflagration is prepared. That is the history of the twentieth century. The same iron laws apply to the twenty-first. (6)

Notes
1. http://howiescorner.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/is-shttp://howiescorner.blogspot.ocialist-party-heading-fo-split.html
2. http://69.195.124.91/~brucieba/2013/08/01/what-exactly-did-marx-and-engels-get-wrong-a-la-nial-mulholland/
3. http://socialismiscrucial.wordpress.com/2013/07/15/ted-grants-notes-on-marxist-economics/
4. Ibid
5. https://suacs.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/socialistfightno14.pdf
6. Ibid

Acknowledgements and Thanks
Many thanks to Ray Rising for providing a selection of print-outs regarding the Tendency for the Rate of Profit to Fall.

The VOAG would like to acknowledge Socialist Fight for their article “Ticktin, Taaffe and Underconsumption” in Socialist Fight No.14 some of which is reproduced here.

Thanks also go out to Socialist Fight for their excellent Open Meeting on the “Tendency for the Rate of Profit to Fall” which The VOAG attended. For details of future Socialist Fight meetings contact: Socialist_Fight@yahoo.co.uk.

PFI And The NHS – A Health Emergency

Report by Health Emergency, Published: 04/03/11
More and more NHS hospitals built at high cost with private finance in the last decade (under the controversial Private Finance Initiative) are already closing beds and axing clinical and other staff in a desperate bid to balance the books as NHS budgets face the biggest-ever squeeze.

And now cuts and closures of services are being combined with asset-stripping sales of land and property to bail out floundering Trust finances.

• The financially-strapped South London Healthcare Trust, which includes two financially-disastrous PFI hospital schemes (Bromley’s Princess Royal University Hospital and the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Woolwich) has announced plans to flog off “spare“ land assets on several sites. This will virtually dismember what remains of the Queen Mary’s hospital in Sidcup, where A&E and maternity services have already been axed, despite pre-election promises that they would be kept open – killing any last faint hopes of restoring the lost services.
• In West London, the struggling West Middlesex Hospital Trust is planning to axe hundreds of nursing and admin jobs, and close more of the beds in the PFI-funded hospital, seeking to cut spending by 12% in two years.
• In North East London, the £239m Queen’s Hospital in Romford, part of Barking Havering & Redbridge Hospitals Trust, is running with a whole floor unused, while the Trust is still seeking ways to close most of the 18-year old King George’s Hospital in Ilford in order to stem its continued yearly deficits.
• Upwards of 100 beds in the most costly PFI development in the country, the £1 billion Bart’s & London Hospital (where each bed is costing £1m to build, and £5m over the lifetime of the contract) are also to be closed – before they are even built, leaving the Trust saddled with the escalating bill for building capacity it cannot afford to run.
• In Portsmouth too, a brand new £256m 1,200 bed QueenAlexandraHospital has announced 700 job losses and the closure of 100 costly beds in a battle to balance the books. The “unitary charge“ PFI bill, which rises each year, is £43m this year, making the total cost of the hospital and support services under PFI a staggering £1.6 billion.

Many other PFI hospitals are facing financial problems but have yet to announce cuts. But perhaps the financial nonsense of PFI is clearly underlined by the plight of the West Middlesex Hospital, which has already paid out £89m to the consortium which built the £60m hospital, but faces another 20 years or more of payments totalling more than £420m before the £515m contract is complete.

Commenting on the latest revelations, Health Emergency’s Information Director Dr John Lister said: “PFI means that hospitals face rising bills each year – regardless of their income: It also means that private sector profits are protected by legally binding contracts, taking an increased share of declining Trust budgets, while clinical services, patient care and the jobs of NHS staff are sacrificed – in an impossible battle to balance the books as the NHS faces real-terms cuts for the first time in a decade.

“Isn’t it significant that Andrew Lansley’s massive and controversial Health and Social Care Bill is seeking to break up almost every structure in our NHS, claiming to make the system more efficient, but leaving PFI intact, and instead opening even more ways for the private sector to rip off the taxpayer and undermine public services?

“The Tories appeared opportunistically critical of their own PFI policy when Labour was implementing it, but are now happy to see this growing haemorrhage of cash from the NHS.

“If ministers really wanted value for money in the NHS, they would scrap Lansley’s crazy Bill which hardly anyone – even GPs – supports, and which will cost £3 billion or more to implement, and focus instead on nationalising the PFI hospitals, many of which will be paying through the nose for a generation to come to banks that the taxpayer already effectively owns.“

65 years since the bombing of Hiroshima.

At 8:15 a.m. on August 6, 1945, the US Air Force exploded an atomic bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima, instantly killing 80,000 civilians. Most of the city was leveled by the bomb’s shock wave or incinerated in the subsequent firestorm. Three days later, before it was understood what had happened in Hiroshima, the US exploded a second atomic bomb above Nagasaki, immediately killing 40,000.

Within weeks the toll had likely climbed to 250,000 killed through burns and radiation poisoning. Those who survived the blasts described scenes of nearly unspeakable horror—civilians, mainly women and children, burnt so badly there could be no treatment; “walking dead” staggering through the streets in their last hours, their skin hanging like rags from their bodies; atomic shadows seared into the pavement where humans had stood. Tens of thousands more continued to die and suffer in the years and decades after the attacks.

The US bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki stand among the most savage acts of violence against a civilian population ever committed. Sixty-five years later, they remain shrouded in lies and obfuscation emanating from the modern-day defenders of American militarism.

Typical is a column written by journalist Warren Kozac, published Friday in the Wall Street Jounal. Kozak recently wrote a biography that attempts to rehabilitate the bloodthirsty Air Force general Curtis LeMay, who, before the bombing of Hiroshima, organized the firebombing of Tokyo, killing an estimated 87,000 people.

Kozak repeats the standard lies used to justify the atrocity, including the claim that the decision to use the atomic bomb saved lives. “It should be noted that when President Harry Truman was considering whether to invade Japan instead of dropping the bombs, his advisers estimated that an invasion would result in one million American casualties and at least two million Japanese deaths,” writes. “In the strange calculus of war, the bombs actually saved Japanese lives.”

Truman’s decision had nothing to do with saving lives, Japanese or American. At the time of the bombing, Japan was, in a military sense, already defeated. Its navy, air force, and industrial capacity largely destroyed, the Japanese had sought out conditions for peace in the weeks before the attacks.

The use of the atom bomb was, above all else, a cold-blooded strategic decision made with Washington’s eyes already transfixed on the postwar order. At the Tehran Conference of 1943, the Soviet Union had agreed to declare war on Japan within three months after the ending of hostilities in Europe. After the defeat of Germany, the Soviet Red Army—which had borne the brunt of Allied fighting in Europe—began to be shifted across the Eurasian landmass in preparation for an invasion of Manchuria on August 8, 1945—two days after Hiroshima, and the day before Nagasaki.

Washington was aware that if the war were not concluded rapidly, the Soviet Union would be in a position to assert itself in the resumed Chinese civil war between the pro-US nationalist forces of Chiang Kai-shek and the peasant armies of Mao Zedong, on the Korean peninsula, and potentially in Japan itself, where a revolt of the country’s working class and peasants against the empire—as had taken place in Italy against Mussolini—was far more likely than the fight to the death of the Emperor posited by Kozak and others.

But even more crucially, Truman and the US military were anxious to use the atomic bomb, this new weapon of extraordinary destructive power, as an object lesson to the Soviet Union and the entire world of the lengths Washington would go to defend its interests.

Historian Thomas McCormick has eloquently summarized the decision: “In two blinding glares—a horrible end to a war waged horribly by all parties—the United States finally found the combination that would unlock the door to American hegemony. A prearranged demonstration of the atomic bomb on a noninhabited target, as some scientists had recommended, would not do. That could demonstrate the power of the bomb, but it could not demonstrate the American will to use the awful power. One reason, therefore, for American unwillingness to pursue Japanese peace feelers in mid-summer 1945 was that the United States did not want the war to end before it had had a chance to use the atomic bomb.” (America’s Half-Century, 44-45.)

This year we observe the anniversary of the slaughter in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in a new period of war and militarist aggression. The Obama administration has intensified its war in Afghanistan, loosening up rules of engagement allowing the military to “take out” civilian targets. In recent weeks, Washington has staged a series of provocations designed to ramp up pressure on what it views to be its main strategic rival, nuclear-armed China.

And now the US is shifting toward a war footing with Iran, claiming that its nuclear program is designed to create nuclear weapons, the same charge it falsely leveled against the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein in 2003.

Washington’s hypocrisy is staggering. In cases where it views the nation as an ally—Israel, India, and now Vietnam—it turns a blind eye to nuclear weapons programs or supports uranium enrichment.

Moreover, the Hiroshima anniversary recalls that only the US has ever used nuclear weapons in war. If American imperialism was willing to unleash this destructive power to assert its hegemony at a time of its peak economic strength, it will not shirk its use to defend this hegemony under conditions of economic decline.

There have been repeated reports, beginning in 2006, that the US and Israel are contemplating the use of so-called “tactical” nuclear weapons in a preemptive strike against military targets in Iran. Late in 2008, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates—then still in the employ of the Bush administration—formally advocated the use of preemptive nuclear strikes in a speech to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP). (See “US defense secretary expands pre-emptive war doctrine to include nuclear strikes”.)

Though the US has the largest nuclear stockpile and plays the most destabilizing role in world affairs, the danger of nuclear war is not limited to its designs. Russia, Britain, France, and China maintain thousands of nuclear missiles. Israel has in the past obliquely threatened to use nuclear weapons against its neighbors, while in any new South Asian war, India and Pakistan—and possibly China—would be tempted to use their nuclear missiles.

As in the lead-up to WWI and WWII, the world has become a tinderbox of sharp tensions among the Great Powers. In the Middle East, the Horn of Africa, Central Asia, the Balkans, Southeast Asia and the Pacific, any number of scenarios could touch off a new global conflagration that would repeat the horrors of the 20th century, including the use of nuclear weapons, but on a far more deadly scale.

The descent into depression and militarism, so reminiscent of the 1930s, can only be stopped by the international working class fighting for a socialist program. The capitalists’ genocidal “war of each against all,” as Lenin put it, must be replaced by a planned, socialist economy, organized to meet social needs rather than the profit drives of the rival cliques of billionaires.
By Tom Eley
7 August 2010
WSWS

Election Surrey 2010: Surrey Workers Fight Cuts.- Guildford Against Fees And Cuts

“Councillors say they are ‘trimming the fat’. However, the fat went years ago and they have been gnawing on the bones ever since”.

 Cuts and closures are already being felt in Surrey, which people usually see as a place of leafy suburbs and stockbrokers. However the county’s less well-known trade union struggles and local, grassroots campaigns are beginning to fight back.

Across Surrey, people are mobilising against the cuts. Brooklands College was saved after a huge local campaign by staff, students, parents and local people. Parents, governors and staff at Shortwood School turned out in their hundreds at public meetings. They organised street stalls and collected a petition of over 1,000 signatures in a campaign to save their school. Working peoples’ creativity and organising ability has shocked the local council.

March 15^th saw the launch of  the Save Our Services in Surrey (SOSiS) campaign, sponsored by Surrey Unison. The campaign will coordinate anti-cuts activity, support local campaigns, and bring local trade unionists together to defend jobs and services.

Paul Couchman, Tusc Parliamentary Candidate for Spelthorne, West Surrey and founder of Save Our Services in Surrey said at the launch rally: ”We face threats to close Shortwood infant school in Staines, threats to hundreds of essential bus services, a ‘review’ of fire services with a clear intent to reduce the number of fire stations -and swingeing cuts to community hospital services. -And this is before the county council’s £180 million cuts package over the next few years.”

Paul Couchman is also the secretary of the Surrey County Council Trade Unions (SCCTU), representing all trade unions within the council. They have formally affiliated to the campaign. Speaking at a joint SOSiS and SCCTU lobby of Surrey Council, at Kingston Town Hall on 23rd March, Paul said: “Public sector workers and local communities who need public services, will be asking who to vote for in this year’s general election. Most trades unionists already see that New Labour no longer represents working class people and that whoever wins, the next government will take the axe to public services.”

Richard Jones, Surrey FBU branch secretary spoke at the lobby. He said: “We’ve reached a point where fire crews are turning up at emergencies and having to tell the public that they cannot make a rescue because they have to wait for more staff to turn up. These cuts put lives at risk. We turn up to incidents without enough crew and have to wait for back-up before we can safely enter the building. Fire-fighters are going in understaffed and risking their lives. The public is in danger, fire-fighters are in danger, enough is enough!”

Richard Jones continued: “If these cuts go through, Surrey will be spending less per head of the population on fire services than any county in Britain. It will mean the loss of fire engines and station closures. It’s life or death in the fire services and if these cuts continue the Grim Reaper will be taking up residence in Surrey.”

After the lobby, Paul Couchman told the rally: “We’ve sent a message to the councillors that our public services are vital and we won’t tolerate cuts to them. The politicians spent billions bailing out the bankers, and they want us to pay the price. The local hospital has lost most of its wards including the A&E Dpt, local fire stations face the axe and bus routes are being slashed.”

Paul is Chairman of the Elmbridge Care Homes Campaign. Reffering to the Campaign he said: “We have decided to draw a ‘line in the sand’ and say no more sell-offs. We are fighting to preserve the excellent services provided by the care homes”.
Paul explained the importance of working class people having a political voice, now that New Labour has joined the Tories in cutting and privatising public services. “Its necessary to fight together, trade unions and the community, to maximise the pressure on politicians and councils to fully fund public services.”

Alan Greenspan, head of the US federal reserve during the boom years – once treated as a god by capitalists and now reviled as being responsible for the crisis – recently excused his role by saying: “Unless there is a societal choice to abandon dynamic markets and leverage for some sort of central planning, I fear that preventing bubbles will in the end turn out to be unfeasible. Assuaging their aftermath seems to be the best we can hope for.”

Greenspan is right, capitalism, an unplanned blind system driven by profit and not by social need, will always have periods of crisis like at present. Anxious to restore their profits, the capitalists’ way out of the crisis will always be to try to trample working class people a bit further into the dirt.  All of the things won through struggle – are under attack. The NHS, education – the list is considerable,  The crisis is being used to unravel and dismantle all of those social gains. We’re told that poverty must now increase and that we should meekly accept the growing gap between the richest and the poorest in society. However the public are not fooled.

A Mori survey in the FT showed the public was utterly unconvinced of the need for cuts. Only a quarter believed there’s a need to cut services to reduce the national debt. 50% don’t think cuts are necessary at all -and 48% think more, rather than less, should be spent on public expenditure. The recession is the result of massive market failure. It’s entirely technically and financially feasible to create at least a million new jobs, by investing in insulating homes and public buildings, investing in renewables, through a sustainable publicly run transport system, and utilising the skills and know-how in society for socially useful production. None of this will happen if we leave it to the market.

     http://paulcouchman.com/
     www.ourhomesoursay.org.uk
     http://www.saveourservic.es/
     http://www.surreycountyunison.org.uk/

 
Join Save Our Services in Surrey F/b Group:
http://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=194817448458&ref=ts  
Join Guildford Against Fees And Cuts F/b Page:
http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Guildford-Against-Fees-Cuts/167151436659040

Bolg Statistics – Our First Six Months.

 Well its unbelievable – But we’ve had this blog for six months!

Check out our Blog Stats for the first six months.

Hot topics of the month:
Sussex University Student Occupation 2010
https://suacs.wordpress.com/2010/03/15/sussex-university-student-occupation-2010-the-full-story/

Bolton Town Hall Lobbys Home Secretary
https://suacs.wordpress.com/2010/03/10/bolton-town-hall-lobbys-home-secretary-to-ban-edl-rally-later-this-month/

Time For An Anti-fascist Defence League
https://suacs.wordpress.com/2010/03/20/time-for-an-anti-fascist-defence-league/

Hot Weeks:
Week 47
Spotlight On Committees Of Action
https://suacs.wordpress.com/2009/11/19/103/

Week 12
Bolton Town Hall Lobbys Home Secretary To Ban EDL
https://suacs.wordpress.com/2010/03/10/bolton-town-hall-lobbys-home-secretary-to-ban-edl-rally-later-this-month/

Week 13
Spotlight On The Budget
https://suacs.wordpress.com/2010/03/25/spotlight-on-the-budget/

Latest On The Iraq Occupation

Last month we discussed the real, human cost of the war in Iraq. We discovered amazingly that 1.2 – 1.6 million people have died due to the Iraq conflict, approximately 1:18 of the population. This month we are told 15% of the population, 1:6 has been displaced by the war.  

Seven years after the March 2003 US-led invasion, Iraq remains deeply divided. There are few prospects of durable solutions for the approximately 15 per cent of the population who are displaced inside and outside Iraq. It is thought that there are almost 2.8 million internally displaced people (IDPs), close to half of whom were displaced prior to 2003. Daily life for all Iraqis is precarious. Public health, electricity, water and sanitation services remain inadequate.

Here we forward this newsletter and would encourage everyone to subscribe. It comes once a month in email form- And is packed with interesting items about the war.

Iraq Occupation Focus
www.iraqoccupationfocus.org.uk
Newsletter No. 142
March 25th, 2010

Sign up to receive this free newsletter automatically – go to: http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/i raqfocus. Please also ask all those who share our opposition to the increasingly brutal US-UK occupation to do likewise.

Police: US troops kill Iraqi reporter and husband
AP reports (March 12th): U.S. troops opened fire on a car in western Baghdad, killing an Iraqi journalist and her husband, a police official said. Morgue officials confirmed the deaths and said the bodies of Aseel al-Obeidi and her husband were riddled with bullets.

UK government violated human rights of two imprisoned Iraqis, court rules
The Guardian reports (March 2nd): The UK government was condemned for violating the human rights of two Iraqis accused of murdering two captive British soldiers in 2003. Faisal al-Saadoon and Khalef Hussain Mufdhi, Sunni Muslims and former officials of Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath party, have been detained for almost seven years. They are currently being held in the Rusafa prison near Baghdad. The European court of human rights in Strasbourg unanimously foundthe pair were “at real risk of being subjected to an unfair trial followed by execution by hanging” in Iraq.

Former murder squad chief to head inquiry into Iraqi killings allegation
The Guardian reports (March 9th): An investigation into claims that British troops killed and abused prisoners will be led by a former head of a Scotland Yard murder squad. The case will involve seeking evidence from witnesses to a fierce battle in southern Iraq six years ago. The huge task was announced at the launch of a public inquiry into allegations that British soldiers murdered 20 or more Iraqis after the “battle of Danny Boy”, named after a checkpoint in Maysan province, north of Basra, on 14 May 2004.

Interference Seen in Blackwater Inquiry
NY Times reports (March 2nd): An official at the United States Embassy in Iraq has told federal prosecutors that he believes that State Department officials sought to block any serious investigation of the 2007 shooting episode in which Blackwater Worldwide security guards were accused of murdering 17 Iraqi civilians, according to court testimony. David Farrington, a State Department security agent in the American Embassy at the time of the shooting in Baghdad’s Nisour Square, told prosecutors that some of his colleagues were handling evidence in a way they hoped would help the Blackwater guards avoid punishment for a crime that drew headlines and raised tensions between American and Iraqi officials.

Urgent Appeal for releasing the prisoners detained in Iraq prisons
Brussells Tribunal reports: (March 11th): World Association of Arab Translators and Linguists are appealing to the Secretary General of the United Nations for the release of Iraqi prisoners: “The USA occupying forces in Iraq have locked up more than 162,000 Iraqi citizens in more than 50 prisons and detention camps including 28 camps run by US occupying forces, in addition to many undisclosed investigation and incarceration centres over Iraq.

The number of detainees registered in International Red Cross records is around 71,000, the other detainees are not recorded with the IRC because they are arrested at US detaining centres where visits by the Red-Cross representatives are denied by the occupying forces and thousands of war prisoners and old age detainees have been imprisoned and detained for more than six years suffering from unbearable and painful living and health conditions..

Among the detainees there are 520 women detained by the US forces as hostages in place of their husbands or sons who have escaped detention by the US occupying forces. In prisons run by the US occupying forces there are also more than 900 children of less than fifteen years of age and 470 of them are less than twelve years of age. In the government prisons there are 1400 children less than fifteen years dumped into crowded and filthy cells. There are also 12,000 persons detained by mistake or under suspicion who are still detained for many years.”

Fallujah doctors report rise in birth defects
BBC reports (March 4th): Doctors in the Iraqi city of Fallujah are reporting a high level of birth defects, with some blaming weapons used by the US after the Iraq invasion. The city witnessed fierce fighting in 2004 as US forces carried out a major offensive against insurgents.Now, the level of heart defects among newborn babies is said to be 13 times higher than in Europe. British-based Iraqi researcher Malik Hamdan told the BBC’s World Today programme that doctors in Fallujah were witnessing a “massive unprecedented number” of heart defects, and an increase in the number of nervous system defects. She said that one doctor in the city had compared data about birth defects from before 2003 – when she saw about one case every two months – with the situation now, when, she saw cases every day.

2.8 million Iraqis remain internally displaced
Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre reports (March 4th): Seven years after the March 2003 US-led invasion, Iraq remains deeply divided. There are few prospects of durable solutions for the approximately 15 per cent of the population who are displaced inside and outside Iraq. It is thought that there are almost 2.8 million internally displaced people (IDPs), close to half of whom were displaced prior to 2003. Though Iraq is no longer in the grip of a humanitarian crisis, daily life for all Iraqis is precarious. Public health, electricity, water and sanitation services remain inadequate.

Iraq’s trade ministry hit by £2.6 billion fraud
The Times reports (March 7th): Rampant government corruption emerged as one of the biggest issues in the election campaign, with the exposure of a huge fraud at the trade ministry. Sabah al-Saadi, head of the Iraqi parliament’s anti-corruption committee, said documents showed that $4 billion (£2.6 billion) had gone missing from the ministry, but that the total could be as high as $8 billion in the past four years. Saadi said he was pursuing 20,000 legal cases for official corruption, most of which had been delayed until a new government was installed.

Voter fraud allegations
Juan Cole reports (March 5th): Aljazeera Arabic reports that parties are attempting to buy votes among the often penniless refugees. Al-Hayat [Life] reports in Arabic that over a million Iraqis took part in early voting. An official in the Independent High Electoral Commission, Hamdiya al-Husaini, confirmed to al-Hayat that soldiers had been pressured to vote for a certain party, which she would not name, and even that some soldiers arrived at the voting station only to find that someone else had already voted on their behalf. She promised an investigation by the High Electoral Commission. The voting process was chaotic, and many soldiers’s names could not be found at their voting stations on the registration rolls. Some soldiers even staged demonstrations over being disenfranchised in this way, in response to which the High Electoral Commission promised them redress. Nevertheless, thousands are estimated to have been unable to vote.

Iraq opposition alleges ‘flagrant’ election fraud
AFP reports (March 12th): A senior member of Iraq’s main secular opposition bloc protested of blatant fraud in favour of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki during Iraq’s general election. “There has been clear and flagrant fraud,” said Intisar Allawi, a senior candidate in ex-prime minister Iyad Allawi’s Iraqiya bloc, the main rival to Maliki’s State of Law Alliance. “There were persons who manipulated or changed the figures to increase the vote in favour of the State of Law Alliance.” She said that Iraqiya’s own election observers for last Sunday’s poll had found ballot papers in garbage dumps in the northern disputed province of Kirkuk.

Ayad Allawi accuses Nouri al-Maliki’s group of fraud in bid to retain power
The Time adds (March 12th): Ayad Allawi told Western officials that aides to Nouri al-Maliki, the Prime Minister, had hidden ballot papers and falsified computer records in an effort to retain power. “They are stealing the votes of the Iraqi people,” his spokesman told a press conference called to set out the main claims. Several violations alleged by Mr Allawi have been confirmed by diplomats and election observers. Mr Allawi also claimed that 250,000 soldiers were denied the chance to vote, and that an election monitor had found ballot papers with votes for Mr Allawi dumped in the garden of a polling station in the northern city of Kirkuk.

Number of Iraqis killed jumps as election nears
AP report (March 2nd): The number of Iraqis killed in war-related violence increased by 44 percent between January and February, according to a count by The Associated Press, with civilians accounting for almost all of the casualties.

Iraqi children’s rights violated
The Brussells Tribunal reports (February 2010): Under the American occupation, lack of security, sectarian violence, deterioration of health care systems, poverty, massive imprisonments, clean water shortages, limited or no electrical power, environmental pollution and lack of sanitation all contributed to grave violations to children’s rights and a drastic increase in the child mortality rate. It has been reported that one out of eight children in Iraq die before their fifth birthday.

Iraq’s Christians demand justice
Al Jazeera reports (February 28th): Iraqis in Baghdad and Mosul have protested a recent wave of attacks on their minority religious communities, following the murder of eight Christians in less than two weeks. Holding olive branches and the national flag, demonstrators vented their anger over the poor security afforded them in the wake of a series of killings. Shouting slogans such as “stop the killing of Christians”, hundreds of demonstrators called on authorities to guarantee their protection as they marched round al-Ferdus Square in central Baghdad.

EI protests against the continued harassment of union leaders
Education International reports (February 26th): Education International is very concerned about the continuous governmental interference the Iraqi Teachers’ Union (ITU) is experiencing. The ITU, an organisation currently applying for EI membership, continues to face extreme attacks from the Iraqi government which wants to control the union. Iraqi teacher unionist al-Battat was arrested and then released on 22 February after an eight-day detention period. He was involved in strike actions, and his home came under fire after he refused to hand over the union memberships lists.

Women Miss Saddam
Abdu Rahman and Dahr Jamail report for IPS (March 12th): Under Saddam Hussein, women in government got a year’s maternity leave; that is now cut to six months. Under the Personal Status Law in force since Jul. 14, 1958, when Iraqis overthrew the British-installed monarchy, Iraqi women had most of the rights that Western women do. Now they have Article 2 of the Constitution: “Islam is the official religion of the state and is a basic source of legislation.” Sub-head A says “No law can be passed that contradicts the undisputed rules of Islam.” Under this Article the interpretation of women’s rights is left to religious leaders – and many of them are under Iranian influence.”The U.S. occupation has decided to let go of women’s rights,” Yanar Mohammed who campaigns for women’s rights in Iraq says.

New Fraud Cases Point to Lapses in Iraq Projects
NY Times reports (March 13th): Investigators looking into corruption involving reconstruction in Iraq say they have opened more than 50 new cases in six months by scrutinizing large cash transactions — involving banks, land deals, loan payments, casinos and even plastic surgery — made by some of the Americans involved in the nearly $150 billion program. Some of the cases involve people who are suspected of having mailed tens of thousands of dollars to themselves from Iraq, or of having stuffed the money into duffel bags and suitcases when leaving the country, the federal investigators said. In other cases, millions of dollars were moved through wire transfers. Suspects then used cash to buy BMWs, Humvees and expensive jewellery, or to pay off enormous casino debts.

Cuts To Education Exposed – Guildford Against Fees And Cuts

25th March 2010

CUTS TO EDUCATION EXPOSED

 On Thursday the government announced how cuts to higher education will be distributed between the universities. The long-awaited report confirmed the fears of many that education would be made to pay the price of the £1 trillion given to the rich bankers. The report from the Higher Education Funding Council of England shows that four out of every five universities in England will face real-terms cuts. A total of £573 million in cash cuts (7.23%), have been announced for next year alone. This is nothing short of a catastrophe for education in England.

In order to make the cuts seem less bitter, slight increases have been made to teaching and research funding but this is still a real terms fall. The cuts by and large fall in the ‘capital funding’ bracket – mostly the money that universities are allowed to claim for new buildings. This may not seem like it will immediately effect students, but many university buildings are unfit for purpose and will be replaced by universities using funding from other areas – effectively sacking teachers and replacing them with bricks. This is currently happening at King’s College, where staff are being sacked at the same time as management are forking out £20 million for the grandiose Somerset House on the bank of the river Thames.

Just for profit, not for students
Research funding will be narrowed into a smaller number of ‘elite’ institutions, creating a two-tier system.
The general trend is to give more money to the universities that already have the most, by taking it away from the others. Oxford University’s research funding has increased by £7.1million up to £126million, and a third of the total research fund is distributed to just five key universities – Oxford, Cambridge, UCL, Imperial and Manchester. Less fortunate universities are set to become little more than teaching factories providing degrees aimed at workplace skills with much less funding to develop research practices. But although these richer universities are more protected from the cuts, some are still making academic staff redundant as part of a drive towards “restructuring” – providing only courses that are profitable in the world of business, and deprioritising education that is for the pursuit of knowledge.

Education for the rich
Many university managers want to shift the central funding crisis onto students – by campaigning for higher tuition fees. Shortly after the general election, the review into ‘Higher Education Funding and Student Finance’, headed by ex-BP chief executive Lord Browne, is expected to increase the tuition fee cap from £3,225 per year to £5,000 or even higher.

Some universities such as Oxford are pushing for the cap to be abolished altogether, allowing them to charge whatever they like. Fees have already been shown to put working class students off entering university, and the higher fees proposed are likely to mean that more prestigious universities such as those in the Russell group will become almost exclusively playgrounds of the rich. The combined effect will be that working class students will pay to be trained in careers, while rich students will receive a traditional ‘liberal’ arts and sciences education leading to cultural elitism. This would be a serious regression back in the direction of a Victorian style education.

Stealing our future
But with money, or without it, the HEFCE is threatening to keep higher education well out of reach of thousands of students in Further Education colleges who want to carry on their studies.
Entry quotas have been given to universities, and they will be required to keep within the limits or face financial penalties. At a time when unemployment is so high, many young people are desperate to start earning money, or continue education and are now being denied the opportunity for either, with an estimated seven applicants for every university place this year, leaving youth on the scrap-heap.

Courses cut – exec pay rockets
Many universities have already begun cutting staff and even whole departments. Sussex has lost linguistics, Leeds is losing classics, UCL is cutting language courses and Westminster is slashing IT. The cuts are not just a response to anticipated central government funding cuts, but university managers are cynically using them as an excuse to remove unprofitable courses and academics who perform useful research, but without immediate financial value to businesses.

This is part of the trend towards neo-liberalism in universities where academics have to justify their jobs based on economic value, ignoring the far more important value non-profitable research can have for society. The move towards business-orientated universities has expressed itself in other ways – vice-chancellors have seen their pay increase to a level similar of Britain’s largest national corporations, many earning in excess of £300,000 per annum. At the same time their numbers have increased by a third, meaning a disproportionate amount of money is spent on management while academic jobs are being cut. This is

Britain’s role in the shady European ‘Bologna Process’ plan, which is attacking education across Europe, and has provoked mass uprisings of students from Italy, to Greece, to France, Austria, Germany, Switzerland and many more. The process coordinates efforts by the leaders of 42 countries to standardise universities, allowing them to compete with one another – creating a market in education, where institutions that best serve the needs of business will thrive, whereas the others will be cut back. The global financial crisis seems to mean that the bosses are accelerating the process.

But the current attacks on education are no foregone conclusion, and the movement for education is starting to win victories. Occupations, demonstrations and strikes at Sussex, Leeds and London Met have already won some impressive victories along the way to defeating the cuts, and the similar struggles of our brothers and sisters in Europe show a potential to organise internationally – if we could do that imagine how powerful the student movement would be. The lesson – we need to organise and fight for learning, not profit

Copied from: http://www.workerspower.com

Education Campaign – After The Occupation – What To Do Next

CUTS CAMPAIGNS – FURTHER ACTION

March 13th
In the week 13th-20th March – take action to support the strike at Leeds and Sussex and demand the unconditional Reinstatement of the Sussex 6!
The London and Southern Regional National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts have issued a call for further action for the 17th and 18th,
Things you can do –
* Hand out leaflets on your campus telling students about the strikes and the Sussex 6
* Take a collection for the strike funds at Sussex and Leeds
* Take photographs of students on your campus holding signs saying “I occupied Sussex House”
* Organise rallies, marches, and other forms of protest in support of staff and against fees and cuts
* Get a motion passed in your union supporting the strikes and the national campaign
* Come to the UCU demonstration against cuts in London on the 20th of March
* Attend the Education Activists’ meeting, Kings College London. 16^th March. 6.30pm https://suacs.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/16th-march-regional-meeting-flyer

Download the full story of the current Sussex University occupation.
Word File – Text Only: https://suacs.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/cuts-text-pics.doc
Word File – Text & Pics: https://suacs.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/cuts-text-only.doc

LINKS: 
Visit our blog https://suacs.wordpress.com/ for the full story to date and further updates.
Or join Guildford Against Fees And Cuts F/b page.

Join the  F/b group: Sussex Stop The Cuts
Or Visit http://www.defendsussex.wordpress.com

Sussex University Occupation – The First Day

The Voice of Anti-Capitalism in Guildford joined Sussex University students for the first day of their occupation.

12th March.
Download our tribute to them below in plain text or text with pictures

Download Word Version of this document with pictures: https://suacs.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/cuts-text-pics.doc
Download Word Version of this document -text only:
https://suacs.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/cuts-text-only.doc

Come to the UCU demonstration against cuts in London on the 20th of March http://www.ucu.org.uk/index.cfm?articleid=3787
Attend the Education Activists’ meeting, Kings College London. 16^th March.   https://suacs.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/16th-march-regional-meeting-flyer.pdf
Details of further action: https://suacs.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/cuts-further-action.doc

LINKS: 
Visit our blog https://suacs.wordpress.com/ for the full story to date and further updates.
Or join Guildford Against Fees And Cuts F/b page.

Join the  F/b group: Sussex Stop The Cuts
Or Visit http://www.defendsussex.wordpress.com

Dan Vockins, Sussex NUS addresses a meeting of academics
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5ar1KjLKME&feature=channel

Sussex University Student Occupation 2010 -The Full Story

                       SUSSEX UNIVERSITY STUDENT OCCUPATION

 SUSSEX STOP THE CUTS
The Stop the Cuts campaign formed in response to plans by the University administration to cut back on spending by millions in the next few years. The University is planning to cut £3 million this academic year, and £5 million next year.

Sussex Stop the Cuts is a group for all staff and students concerned about the negative effects these cuts will have on the quality of education, research and livelihoods at Sussex. Everyone who studies or works at Sussex needs to challenge the decisions being made on their behalf. And ask whether the millions of pounds spent on new buildings and managerial salaries would have been better spent on courses, jobs and pensions.

 The Stop the Cuts campaign demands the university administration makes no compulsory redundancies and resists student fees and cuts in higher education spending. It argues for the reining in of executive pay, the postponement of new building projects, and the protection of academic freedom. Sussex Stop the Cuts also calls for a concerted student effort to prevent the threatened 5% cut to USSU’s block grant from the University. Instead, the campaign calls for the University to provide USSU with the financial assistance it needs to provide students with fundamental support services through the recession. Now is the time when students need their Union the most!

 SUSSEX HOUSE
Last week students occupied Sussex House (the management buildings of Sussex University) in solidarity with lecturers who had voted in favour of strike action. Roger Morgan (Head of Security) and John Duffy (Registrar and Secretary) stopped some staff from leaving, herded them in to an office and joining them, locked the door. They represented this to the police as a hostage situation. The result was 16 vans of riot police were called onto campus. Students were beaten back with fists, knees, batons and police dogs. Senior managers including Robert Allison (Pro-Vice Chancellor) and Michael Farthing, (Vice Chancellor), were eye witneses to students being attacked by the riot police.

Senior managers including John Duffy (Registrar and Secretary) and Roger Morgan (Head of Security) repeated their hostage story to the High Court in order to get an injunction against the entire student body. The injunction made occupational protests on campus illegal. Michael Farthing then suspended 6 students indefinitely. They have not been given a reason  as to why they have been suspended, nor have they been told when they will be reinstated. This is a politically motivated attack on 6 students by the management. An attempt to intimidate the student body in the face of unprecidented cuts to their education. A warning to students not to support the UCU lecturers’ strike.

BUT WE SAY
– STUDENTS, LECTURERS AND STAFF UNITE!
– UNCONDITIONAL IMMEDIATE REINSTATE OF THE SUSSEX 6!
– NO POLICE VIOLENCE ON CAMPUS!
– NO CONFIDENCE IN VCEG! (Vice Chancellor’s Executive Group)
– THE REMOVAL OF ROGER MORGAN, HEAD OF SECURITY
– THE RIGHT TO PROTEST!

 THURSDAY – 11^th
Around two in the afternoon there was a demonstration around an entrance to the University.  I arrived as the last speaker, Simon Hardy from the Fight Cuts at Westminster Campaign addressed the cowed. Simon Hardy is a member of Workers Power and led the recent occupation of Westminster University.

The rally concluded with a unanimous vote to re-oocupy Sussex House. Around eight hundred students and staff marched around the campus and then to Sussex House. Once inside students seperated and  made their way around the building. From the roof of the building several stories high, students could still be seen entering the building and protesting outside. After some time it was decided to vacate the building. The demonstration continued around the campus until it reached a lecture theater, Arts A2. This is now the venue for the occupation.  Once the building was secured, an open meeting was convened. A letter was drafted to the Vice Chancellor, Michael Farthing listing a series of demands and a petition for him to collect in person.

The main demand was the unconditional reinstatement of the six students. There was some discussion wether the letter should include wider demands such as no compulsory redundancies, however a more focussed campaign was decided upon. An assurance that no disciplinary action should be taken against any one involved in this present occupation, the last occupation and any future occupations was added to the demands. Around five hundred students and staff  unanimusly voted to stay in occupation until their main demands were met.

Cuts campaigners were able to rerout lectures, sheduled for the occupied theater- and contacted lectureres to minimise the disruption to teaching. Meanwhile the meeting decided that it wasn’t the occupation that might disrupt teaching, but the Vice Chanacellor’s refusal to collect the petition and engage with the meeting.          

 A delegate from the Brighton Workers Support Committee spoke to the meeting. He spoke of the unity between students and workers in Brighton. He referred to the students’ support for the postal workers  as an example of students and workers coming together. And spoke of last week’s Brighton March For Jobs, where the Sussex Six addressed a rally of workers and students. Another speaker from The Portsmouth Cuts Campaign called the Sussex students “an inspiration to us all”.

 After a break, the meeting reconvened with a discussion on what to do whilst occupying  the lecture theater. There was a feeling in the meeting that the theater should be used as a creative and educational space during the occupation. Films were suggested, talks and workshops. A need to make publicity materials like banners and flyers was highlighted, along with a press release and internet messages.

EVENING RALLY
The meeting broke up for a while. Some people came and went whilst others were busy organising pratical things. I went around the campus postering and alerting students to the occupation. At six oclock the meeting came together again for an evening rally. A packed lecture theater of around five hundred students and staff were joined by trades unionists and supporters. Prof Dave Hill, TUSC Parliamentary Candidate for Brighton and Socialist Resistence member spoke to the rally. He said, “Social studies conducted in the ‘70’s showed the optimum size for a seminar is twelve people, but today classes have thirty people. And the attacks on education will mean a further fifteen thousand lecturer jobs will dissapear around the country. Dave Hill emphasised that the students’ struggle is the workers’ struggle.. He said he was “humbled by the number of students on the TUC organised March For Jobs in Brighton which numbered six to seven thousand”. “Students unite and fight- It reminds me of 1968” he said. [lol]

He went on to say, “The students and workers struggles are one because life is about living in society not just about education and jobs. You can’t live on a five pound eighty minimum wage. Some people earn  five pound eighty a second. Its all down to surplas value.- As workers, don’t get to keep the value of what we produce”. “Over the time of the Labour government, the richest one percent has halved the proportion of tax they pay, while the poorest ten percent have doubled their’s. And still the poor is expected to pay for the bankers’ crisis. The government claims the cuts are unavoidable, but if we cut trident, cut the id scheme, and taxed the rich, education cuts would not be necessary. He summed up by calling for the reinstatement of  the Sussex Six and demanded those that made false allegations of hostage taking be called to account.

The RMT delegate described the Sussex students as a “real inspiration to the whole trade union movement”. And promissed to support them “until they are victorious”. He went on to tell how the RMT has recently voted for industrial action. Not over pay, but over the loss of fifteen thousand, rail infrustructure job loosess. These job losses are vital for the safety of the railways and will take the railway network back to the days of accidents. A UCU official spoke to the rally about their forthcomming strike next Thursday. He said the strike demanded “No compulsory redundancies and ACAS negotiations” and warned of more strikes next term. He called for student and lecturer solidarity, “We all have a common interest in good working conditions.The cuts are an attack on all of us” he said. “The management has been pressurised by the occupation of the theater, in defiance of the injunction. This is a result of the solidarity between workers and students.”

 PLANNING MEETING 
After an interval of some time a planning meeting was called. The meeting voted unanimously to stay over night, and perhaps indefinitly. Priorities were identified, such as to arrange a “teach-in” for the following day and to build support within the ancillary staff, as well as the wider community. Two support workers told the meeting of the solidarity the support staff of the Unite union felt toward the students and lectureres. The meeting organised itself in to working parties with groups for banner making, food, publicity, bedding and the like. A teach-in, a day of debate and critical discussion was planned. The meeeting arranged a demonstration and a talk by a History of Art lecturer from Portsmouth University on the student struggles of 1968.

 THOUGHTS
The student body on show here today unanimously recognised the context in which these cuts were taking place and laid the ultimate blame on the very capitalist system itself. The students involved in today’s action were not necessarily socialists, but of a more libertarian anti-capitalism. A most immediate indication as to where the students took their political cue was in their propensity to use hand waving gestures instead of hand clapping to signify approval. A practice popularised by the eco and libertarian trends in the anti-capitalist movement. The use of hand waving was a conscious reference of these trends. And expressed an identification with them.

Another thing that struck me was the amazing efficiency and coolness of the students. These guys were experienced pros – and any group considering an occupational protest would do well to speak to them. They knew what to organise and how to organise it.  The students emphasised their wish to make creative use of the space they occupied. Creative arts were high on the agenda. And they lost no time in forming creative working parties to set up events and workshops for the following days. The students’ demonstration exhibited the very best of contemporary anti-capitalist protest.

 UPDATE – FRIDAY 12th
Students at Sussex are continuing to occupy a lecture theatre in protest of the suspension of the Sussex Six. After twenty-four hours. The students still haven’t had their demands met or had any further contact with management, since they came to collect the list of demands and  petition yesterday afternoon.

 Today Sussex staff publicly defied a court injunction to come to the occupation and show their support. Sussex management are on the verge of being forced to make a humiliating climbdown and unconditionally re-instate the 6 students. Sussex UCU, following an unprecedented 80% turn out in their ballot, are now set for strike action over 115 job cuts. Staff at Leeds will be going out on strike against cuts this week, and unions at many other campuses are balloting for action. Ballots for strike action are underway or imminent at King’s, UCL and Westminster, along with London FE institutions. Student sit-ins have taken place in Essex, Sussex, UCL and Westminster.

 There was a demonstration on Library Square at 3 pm, in support of the occupation and against the cuts and suspensions. Management have granted a conditional return to the students suspended last week -but the conditions of their return mean they continue to be singled out and prevented from taking part fully in campus life. A video link was arranged so that the suspended students could speak to the occupation. Throughout the day the forum has been receiving messages of support from workers and students from all over the country and abroad. We need to seize the moment and apply as much pressure as we can nationally to Vice Chancellors, Peter Mandelson and the government. We need to stand in solidarity with all staff facing compulsory redundancy.

Take action this week! Support the strikes and the Sussex 6! Come to the demonstration on the 20th of March! We call for you to JOIN US in our programme across the following days, student, worker or ‘just someone intrigued’.

Download Word Version of this document with pictures: https://suacs.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/cuts-text-pics.doc
Download Word Version of this document -text only:  https://suacs.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/cuts-text-only.doc 

Come to the UCU demonstration against cuts in London on the 20th of March http://www.ucu.org.uk/index.cfm?articleid=3787
Attend the Education Activists’ meeting, Kings College London. 16^th March. 6.30pm https://suacs.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/16th-march-regional-meeting-flyer.pdf
Details of further action: https://suacs.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/cuts-further-action.doc

LINKS: 
Visit our blog https://suacs.wordpress.com/ for the full story to date and further updates.
Or join our F/b page: Guildford Against Fees And Cuts

Join the  F/b group: Sussex Stop The Cuts
Or Visit http://www.defendsussex.wordpress.com

Dan Vockins, Sussex NUS addresses a meeting of academics
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5ar1KjLKME&feature=channel