THANKS FOR ALL THE AMAZING SUPPORT
#NOPRIVATISATION #REINSTATECANDY
SUPPORT
NATIONAL GALLERY NOT FOR SALE 
most impressive. hope it works.
What on EARTH makes anyone think that a NATIONAL Gallery should be privately run? Against the nature of the enterprise!! MF
LikeLiked by 1 person
Exactly the clue is in the title NATIONAL GALLERY! Can’t anyone see what private has already done to this country ………………….
LikeLike
I too support the call to keep the National Gallery in the public sector Alison Morgan NASUWT
LikeLike
Very important this struggle.
Beyond the campaign to reinstate Candy, which is just and correct in itself, there is the struggle against the penetration of finance capital – in the form of private enterprise and culture for profit – in the field of culture.
Up to now, was the responsibility of the State to see to culture. However representative of capital itself, the State had a duty of care in the name of society as a whole towards the cultural and educational heritage of humanity. There was, therefore, a barrier in the way to the manipulation of the cultural heritage. It was not possible for a company (now a multinational often having nothing to do with culture at all) to enrich an already insanely rich ‘elite’.
But the worst is not the profits that profiteers from culture derive from the human heritage. The worst is the incapacity of those people to appreciate and analyse objectively. They represent a layer of the population, very small, for whom culture means the patronising of the poor – rich-and-poor being, in their view, the eternal and unchangeable law of nature, as proven by all the wars, all the competition and all the general mayhem imposed by private property up to now, against the common good.
As May Day is coming close, this Reinstate Candy Campaign and the National Gallery Strikers have already linked with the FBU and their own campaign, and helped unite most Trade Unions. MayDay is on a working day, and this is a golden opportunity to call on the Unions, the TUC, the Trades Councils, the students, intellectuals and artists like Ken Loach, Owen Jones, Russell Brand, along with known personalities like J McDonnell and John Hendy, to send messages in the places of work about the 1st May demo, and recommend stoppages. In support of the National Gallery strikers, and in support also of the struggle against austerity.
Which leads me to note that some Peoples Assemblies are supporting the National Gallery strikers, along with the PCS West Central Scotland and the PCS National Library in Wales. Along with the CGT in some parts of France, starting with the CGT at the Rodin Museum de Paris, and at the Palais de Compiegne. This means that the workers of the whole of Britain are seeking to unite Britain on a new basis, that of defending the public good in common, therefore not having to divide along regional lines. And they are seeking the support of, and receiving the support of workers in France.
It is not by chance that it is in the field of culture that this struggle takes place. It is worth noting that the PCS has always valued its cultural section, and that this cultural section of the PCS has denounced, along with sectors of the British students, the transformation of culture into a commodity for buying and selling, and the transformation of universities into kinds of factories to produce cultural ‘goods’ for sale. Note that the knowledge you get at the university, itself is turned into a commodity, which you – when you have studied – will be expected to sell to others who will not have received it, turning you into a specifically trained-cog for the buying and selling machine. This machine has interest in not spreading and universalising knowledge, because those who have been trained and given knowledge will then shine by what they know, in the name of those who imparted knowledge to them, that is to say, administrations that ‘know’ what the general public does not, and therefore can impose themselves on the common public.
There is much to say also about the reason why the working class of the British Isles, and indeed of Europe, is beginning to unify around the defence of culture. The crisis of capitalism is not just military, financial and economic. It is mostly cultural. The repudiation of the commercialisation of culture by the layers of the population still allowed to express itself – although to an extent only – shows the degree of comprehension reached by humanity. Social organisation, culture above all, must be used for the benefit of all, and for the common good. This demands the imposition of public and popular control over all the means of production, and their control by the public and the population, starting with those who do the work.
This is an aspect of what the struggle at the National Gallery shows. It is an indication of the kind of struggle that is coming, not just to nationalise and plan, but for workers and public control to guarantee that what is ‘public’ remains public and at the service of the common good.
Full support to the National Gallery!
Solidarity with Candy and Ricky Matthews!
For this campaign to reach the Peoples Assembly and Assemblies, to spread from the NUT to the other teaching unions, for the TUC to make MayDay specially in support of the National Gallery (and the Blacklist fighters), for the National Trade Councils to support Cambridge/Camden/Plymouth/Barnsley Trade Councils, for the unification of the students with the workers nationally, for the struggle to spread to all the Art Galleries, and call on the workers of France to start operating in united front with those of Britain around this issue in a consistent way, and appeals to be sent to the whole of the European working class. To link all this with the anti-TTIP struggle. Etc.
Comradely greetings and thanks for asking opinions
Marie Lynam for the Trotskyist-Posadists in Britain.
LikeLike
This sell-off of our National assets is abhorrent to us all. Unlike our government we know the value of such national institutions and do not want them to leave our ownership. You, the government are there to serve the entire country not favoured sections of the country who pay into your party coffers. Stop the sell off now.
LikeLike
Successive governments have pushed the idea that “private good public bad”. Well the Land Registry were able to push back against that idea. I hope your campaign is just as successful theirs was.
LikeLike
Successive governments have pushed the idea that “private good public bad”. Well the Land Registry were able to push back against that idea and won their campaign. I hope your campaign is just as successful as theirs was.
LikeLike