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What's new at Links: Left unity in Australia, Le Blanc on Trotsky, Rosa Luxemburg, Copenhagen, Fifth International, Dennis Brutus, Muslims in Australia * * * Subscribe free to Links - International Journal of Socialist Renewal - at http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=343373 You can also follow Links on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LinksSocialism Visit and bookmark http://links.org.au and add it to your RSS feed (http://links.org.au/rss.xml). If you would like us to consider an article, please send it to li...@dsp.org.au *Please pass on to anybody you think will be interested in Links. * * * Australia: New era of left unity as DSP votes to merge with the Socialist Alliance <http://links.org.au/node/1444> [The following speech, to the opening rally of the seventh national conference of the Socialist Alliance <http://www.socialist-alliance.org> on January 2, 2010, was delivered by *Peter Boyle*, former national secretary of the Democratic Socialist Perspective <http://www.dsp.org.au>.] Comrades, My job tonight is to make the unusual -- if not unexpected -- announcement that the Democratic Socialist Perspective (DSP) decided today at its 24th congress to effectively dissolve into the Socialist Alliance and to transfer all that it has built up, over some four decades of its existence, to the Socialist Alliance. * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1444> `Second assassination' of Trotsky -- Paul Le Blanc reviews Robert Service's biography of Trotsky <http://links.org.au/node/1440> */Trotsky: A Biography/* By Robert Service Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009 600 pages December 25, 2009 -- Robert Service has written, to great acclaim, a new biography of Leon Trotsky. "Trotsky moved like a bright comet across the political sky," Service tells us. Along with Lenin and other leaders of the Russian Revolution associated with the Bolshevik -- soon renamed Communist -- party, "he first came to global attention in 1917. ... He lived a life full of drama played out with the world as his stage. The October Revolution changed the course of history, and Trotsky had a prominent role in the transformation. ... There is no denying Trotsky's exceptional qualities. He was an outstanding speaker, organizer and leader." ( * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1440> Copenhagen: Why the West tries to blame China and the poor for COP15 fiasco <http://links.org.au/node/1437> / /By *Roy Wilkes* December 27, 2009 -- Something rotten happened in Denmark. The fifteenth session of the Conference of the Parties (COP15), in which so many had invested so much hope, began as farce and ended in tragedy. Anyone who still had the faintest illusion that the climate crisis could be resolved within capitalism has now seen it fatally dashed against the rocks of Copenhagen. Of course, our rulers cannot blame themselves for this fiasco. So, who then is to blame? "China", screams a furious Ed Milliband [the British Labour government's Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change] upon his return to London, with the media machine joining the chorus. Blame China! Blame Venezuela! Blame the poor countries who obstructed "The Deal"! Blame the victims who dared to ask for a 1.5 degree C limit, those unrealistic fools who dared to ask to be allowed to live. * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1437> Labour Party Pakistan endorses Fifth Socialist International process <http://links.org.au/node/1443> The Labour Party Pakistan's National Committee meeting on December 26-27, 2009, held in Islamabad agreed to endorse the declaration for the fifth international. The LPP leadership discussed in detail the different aspects of the declaration and found in agreement on the issues. * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1443> Troubadour politics: How Dennis Brutus maintained 'stubborn hope' <http://links.org.au/node/1442> By *Patrick Bond *January 1, 2010 -- World-renowned political organiser and one of Africa's most celebrated poets, Dennis Vincent Brutus, died early on December 26 in Cape Town, in his sleep, aged 85. /Poetry and Protest: A Dennis Brutus Reader /is the title of the autobiographical sketches and verse published in 2006 by Haymarket Books of Chicago and the University of KwaZulu-Natal Press. What links these aspects of your life, I once asked the itinerant Dennis Brutus, and he replied, "The role of the troubadour." * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1442> Rosa Luxemburg and Marxist politics <http://links.org.au/node/1441> / /By *Graham Milner* Rosa Luxemburg (1870-1919) is one of the greatest figures ever produced by the international socialist movement. Her contribution, as theorist and activist, deserves to be recognised and celebrated by the newer generations of socialist activists who have become involved in the movement in recent decades. Those of us who have been involved in the socialist left for rather longer may also benefit from a critical review of the achievements of this great woman. * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1441> People's power in Copenhagen <http://links.org.au/node/1439> December 30, 2009 -- /Green Left Weekly /writer and Australian Socialist Alliance climate change activist *Simon Butler *talks about the the Copenhagen climate talks with Radio Adelaide's* */Backstory/. * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1439> Australia: How governments and the capitalist media marginalise the Muslim community <http://links.org.au/node/1438> By *Helen Patterson* December 15, 2009 -- The antipathy of mainstream Australian society toward Muslims is not a new development. As early as 1912, Australians were being cautioned about the danger of Australia falling under Islamic control. The adoption of camel transport had brought Muslim men from Afghanistan to Australia in increasing numbers from 1860 until they controlled the camel transport business. Despite their valuable contribution to the expeditions carried out by the European "explorers" and their vital role in establishing a transport system in the harsh outback conditions, the early Muslim immigrants were considered inferior to the dominant, white, Christian Europeans and marginalised in a similar way to the detribalised Aboriginal community. * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1438> * * * Links seeks to promote the international exchange of information, experience of struggle, theoretical analysis and views of political strategy and tactics within the international left. It is a forum for open and constructive dialogue between active socialists coming from different political traditions. It seeks to bring together those in the international left who are opposed to neoliberal economic and social policies. It aims to promote the renewal of the socialist movement in the wake of the collapse of the bureaucratic model of "actually existing socialism" in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. ATTENTION: Sign up for regular ``what's new'' announcement emails at http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=343373 Follow Links on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LinksSocialism ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
