[Marxism] South Africa: Declaration of the Democratic Left Front | Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == By the steering committee of the *Democratic Left Front* (previously the Conference of the Democratic Left) January 24, 2011 -- Post-apartheid capitalism is leaving a trail of hunger, poverty, anger and misery. The wealthy elite, the bosses and their hangers-on refuse to concede a single inch to the urgent needs of the majority. They label even the most modest reforms as the thin edge of the wedge of communism. And as always the government shakes and concedes ... And a new round of suffering begins for our people. From January 20 to 23, 2011, at Wits University in Johannesburg, 250 delegates from around the country representing a diverse range of social movements, popular organisations and anti-capitalist formations gathered to forge a united political front to break this cycle which has made South Africa the most unequal country on Earth. The cry of the Conference of the Democratic Left is /KWANELE, KWANELE, ENOUGH IS ENOUGH, GENOEG IS GENOEG/. Full declaration at http://links.org.au/node/2117 * 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 Or join the Links Facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10865397643 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
[Marxism] Exclusive excerpt from `The Science and Humanism of Stephen Jay Gould', by Richard York and Brett Clark | Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == January 26, 2011 -- /Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal/, with the kind permission of Monthly Review Press, is excited to offer its readers an excerpt from */The Science and Humanism of Stephen Jay Gould/*, by Richard York and Brett Clark. * * * *Stephen Jay Gould* was not only a leading paleontologist and evolutionary theorist, he was also a humanist with an enduring interest in the history and philosophy of science. The extraordinary range of Gould's work was underpinned by a richly nuanced and deeply insightful worldview. *Richard York* and *Brett Clark* engage Gould's science and humanism to illustrate and develop the intellectual power of Gould's worldview, particularly with regard to the philosophy of science. They demonstrate how the Gouldian perspective sheds light on many of the key debates occurring not only in the natural sciences, but in the social sciences as well. They engage the themes that unified Gould's work and drove his inquires throughout his intellectual career, such as the nature of history, both natural and social, particularly the profound importance of contingency and the uneven tempo of change. They also assess Gould's views on structuralism, highlighting the importance of the dialectical interaction of structural forces with everyday demands for function, and his views on the hierarchical ordering of causal forces, with some forces operating at large scales and/or over long spans of time, while others are operating on small scales and/or occur frequently or rapidly. Download the excerpt at http://links.org.au/node/2120 * 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 Or join the Links Facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10865397643 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
[Marxism] What's new at Links: Tunisia, green capitalism?, ULA Ireland, China jobs, Ohio socialists, Cuba, Thailand book banned, MLK
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == What's new at Links: Tunisia, green capitalism?, ULA Ireland, China jobs, Ohio socialists, Cuba, Thailand book banned, MLK * * * *For more reliable delivery of new content, please 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 or on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10865397643 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. * * * Tunisia: Masses create people's power bodies in neighbourhoods and workplaces http://links.org.au/node/2113 [During the uprising in Tunisia there have been reports of the formation of neighbourhood and popular self-defence committees in many parts of the country. Below are excerpts from a number of articles by the International Marxist Tendency's Jorge Martín, which offer some fascinating details of this important development.] * Read more http://links.org.au/node/2113 (Updated Jan. 24) Tunisia:`All Arab dictators are shaking on their thrones' -- Left and Arab voices on the insurrection http://links.org.au/node/2101 Statement of the National Administrative Commission of the General Union of Tunisian Workers (UGTT) issued on January 21, 2011 (first published in English on /MRZine/). 1. The General Union of Tunisian Workers is a national organisation necessarily interested in political affairs, given its history of struggle during the colonial epoch and the period of the construction of the modern state, considering the dialectical links among economy, society, politics, and culture in the process of development, but out task has become more urgent than ever. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/2101 The futility of green capitalism: Interview with Daniel Tanuro http://links.org.au/node/2109 Interview with *Daniel Tanuro*, translated by *Richard Fidler* January 17, 2011 -- Daniel Tanuro's new book, /L'impossible capitalisme vert/,or The Futility of Green Capitalism, is a major contribution to our analytical understanding of ecosocialism. Tanuro, a Belgian Marxist and certified agriculturist, is a prolific author on environmental history and policies. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/2109 Ireland: United Left Alliance's electoral challenge strengthens http://links.org.au/node/2107 January 16, 2011 -- The challenge of the United Left Alliance to the right-wing consensus in Irish politics is strengthening rapidly. As of today, a total of 17 constituencies will be contested by 18 ULA candidates in the looming general election. As well as Tipperary South and West Waterford, 11 constituencies in Dublin, two in Cork, as well as Wexford and Limerick city, candidates have been nominated for Carlow/Kilkenny and Laois/Offaly. This means that almost 50% of Dáil [parliamentary] constituencies will have a left alternative to the establishment political parties. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/2107 Martin Hart-Landsberg: China and the jobs issue http://links.org.au/node/2112 By *Martin Hart-Landsberg * January 21, 2011 -- The president of China, Hu Jintao, just completed a visit to the United States and, not surprisingly, many people used the occasion to raise the jobs issue. The US economy continues to suffer from high unemployment. And the US continues to run an enormous trade deficit with China, a deficit that dwarfs any other bilateral deficit. The connection made is as follows: China is an unfair trader. Its state policies, including subsidies and labour repression, are a major reason for the destruction of the US manufacturing sector and jobs. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/2112 Ireland: Radio debate on United Left Alliance and left unity http://links.org.au/node/2110 *The future of the left in Irish politics* January 20, 2011 -- RTE, /Today with Pat Kenny/ -- A new political alliance was born in Ireland just before Christmas. It is the United Left Alliance. It's an umbrella group of left-wing parties and individuals who have joined forces to fight the March 11, 2011, general election. The grouping consists of three existing political parties: the Socialist Party, the People Before Profit Alliance and the Workers and Unemployed Action Group. However the Labour Party and Sinn Fein are not members. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/2110 United States: Buckeye Socialist Network launched http://links.org.au/node/2108 By *Mike Cannon * January 2011 -- The 2010
[Marxism] (Updated Jan. 19) Tunisia:`The revolution continues?' -- Left and Arab voices on the insurrection | Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Just added to http://links.org.au/node/2101 The revolution continues? By *Dyab Abou Jahjah* January 18, 2011 -- The regime is playing its last card today in Tunisia. That last card is the RCD (the party of the former dictator). After the formation of a so-called “national unity government” yesterday, and after that the UGTT (the largest trade union in the country) supported and even participated in it with three ministers, alongside three opposition ministers (from the legal opposition under the regime) many thought that the Tunisian revolution ended up with a compromise. A compromise that left a bitter taste in the mouth of the Tunisian people and especially the youth who started this revolution and were determined to sacrifice in order to see it through... More Plus new article from Arabic site Marxy.com 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
Re: [Marxism] Apologies, new headline: Tunisia: The 9 points of the Workers Communist Party | Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Apologies, my last post should have had the above new headline. On 17/01/2011 11:12 PM, glparramatta wrote: Just added to http://links.org.au/node/2101 Tunisia: The 9 points of the Workers Communist Party January 15, 2010 -- *Tunisia Solidarity Campaign http://tunisiasolidarity.wordpress.com/2011/01/17/tunisia-the-9-points-of-the-wcpt/, *translated from Arabic by *Nadim Mahjoub* 1. The success achieved so far is only half of the way and the other half is achieving the wanted democratic change and implementing it on the ground. 2. The democratic change cannot spring from the same party, the figures, the institutions, the apparatuses and the legislations that maintained the dictatorship and deprived the people from basic rights for more than half a century, 23 years of which under Ben Ali. 3. The interim president is one of Ben Ali’s clique and a president of an appointed body which does not represent the people in any aspect whatsover, and the plan to hold presidential elections in a 60-day time has no purpose but to maintain the continuation of the dictatorial regime through one of its former leaders. 4. The most dangerous of what could happen now is robbing the Tunisian people of their victory and their legitimate ambitions for freedom and a diginified existence and sacrifices through preserving Ben Ali’s regime without Ben Ali and through forming a democratic decor around it. 5. The democratice change, with its political, economical, social and cultural dimensions, requires a real end of the repressive regime by taking a direct step which consists of forming a provisional government or any other body that has excecutive powers and undertakes the task of organising free elections for a Constitutional Assembly which would establish the bases of a real democratic republic in which people would enjoy freedom, social equality and national dignity. 6. All the forces, whether they are political organisations, unions, human rights groups, cultural organisations, organised or non-organised and the people, who have played an effective and decisive role in toppling the dictator, have the task to decide on Tunisia’s future, and no one could replace them in their negotiations or contatcs with the authority. 7. It is of a high urgency that the democratic forces form a national and unified body to carry out the democratic change and has the tasks to protect the gains of the revolting Tunisian people and to negociate with the authorities to yield power to the people in a peaceful way 8. All the democratic forces all over the coutry have to unite in organisations, committees, or local, regional and sectorial councils in organising the popular movement and to undermine the manoeuvre of reaction and the acts of looting and vandalism perpetrated by hidden groups aiming at spreading fear among the citizens, threatening their safety and scaring them of a democratic change to compel the people to surrender to the repressive apparatuses. 9. The armed forces, which consists in the main of the sons and daughters of the people are required to provide safety for the people and the motherland and respect people’s aspirations towards freedom, social jutice and national dignity, which requires lifting the state of emergency as soon as possible so that it doesn’t become an excuse that prevents the Tunisian people from continuing their struggle and achieving their goals. For a provisitional government For a constitutional assembly For a democratic republic Hamma Hammami Workers Communist Party of Tunisia http://www.albadil.org/ 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
[Marxism] What's new at Links: Tunisia in revolt, Wikileaks Marx, S.Korea, Haiti, Thailand, Zapatistas, Cuba, Ivory Coast
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == What's new at Links: Tunisia in revolt, Wikileaks Marx, S.Korea, Haiti, Thailand, Zapatistas, Cuba, Ivory Coast * * * 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 or on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10865397643 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. * * * (Updated Jan. 18) Tunisia:`All Arab dictators are shaking on their thrones' -- Left and Arab voices on the insurrection http://links.org.au/node/2101 By *Dyab Abou Jahjah* January 17, 2011 -- In Tunisia, a new government is being formed under the leadership of the RCD (the party of the fallen dictator) and the participation of some legalised opposition parties. All parties that were illegal under the old regimes are being excluded and this is stirring up a lot of controversy among parts of the Tunisian population who feel that the revolution is being driven away from its ideals. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/2101 Wikileaks, Karl Marx and you http://links.org.au/node/2094 By *Alistair Davidson* December 23, 2010 -- Despite blanket media coverage of Wikileaks and Julian Assange, there has been little discussion of the fact that Assange is merely one leader within a large and complicated social movement. The better analyses have found it interesting that the Swedish Pirate Party are aiding Wikileaks; some note links to the German Chaos Computer Club. But only geeks and hackers (technology workers) are aware that all of these organisations are members of the same movement. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/2094 New Anti-Capitalist Party on Tunisia: 'Ben Ali assassin, Sarkozy accomplice!' http://links.org.au/node/2100 Statement by the *New Anti-Capitalist Party* (Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste) France, translated by *John Mullen* for /Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal/ January 11, 2011 -- When Mohamed Bouazizi committed suicide by setting fire to himself after being harassed by the police his act became the spark which is now setting fire to the whole of the miraculous Tunisia of General Ben Ali. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/2100 South Korea: Struggles by 'irregular' workers multiply, solidarity needed http://links.org.au/node/2099 [For more background to the South Korean irregular workers' struggle, see Chris Kim's excellent article on the Hyundai irregular workers' strike in Ulsan: South Korea: 'Just the first round' by 'irregular workers' at Hyundai Motors, /Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal/, December 16, 2010.] * Read more http://links.org.au/node/2099 (Updated Jan. 16) Tunisia's intifada topples tyrant: 'Yezzi fock!' http://links.org.au/node/2098 On January 14, the BBC reported that the mass uprising in Tunisia had toppled that country's Western-backed tyrant after weeks of protests and government repression, which has cost the lives of dozens of Tunisians. The articles below explain some of the background to the uprising. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/2098 Haiti: Diplomat delivers searing indictment of occupation regime http://links.org.au/node/2097 January 9, 2011 -- Of all the commentaries and interviews coinciding with the anniversary of Haiti's earthquake, none are likely to exceed in significance the interview granted by Organization of American States representative to Haiti, Ricardo Seitenfus, to the Swiss daily /Le Temps /on December 20, 2010. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/2097 Thailand: 60,000 Red Shirt protesters bring Bangkok to a standstill http://links.org.au/node/2096 By *Mong Palatino* January 11, 2011 -- Red Shirt anti-government protesters in Thailand mobilised tens of thousands of their members in central Bangkok on January 9, 2011, as they continued to press their demand for more democratic reforms in government. Police estimated the crowd at 30,000 but rally organisers claimed they gathered 60,000 in the streets. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/2096 Mexico: Opportunism and sectarianism hamper left's resistance to neoliberalism http://links.org.au/node/2095 By *Rachel Evans* January 12, 2011 -- This is an examination of Mexico's social movements, the political parties' and organisations that lead them, and their tactical and strategic outlooks, as well as the left's successes and failures in the fight against neoliberalism. *
[Marxism] Tunisia:`All Arab dictators are shaking on their thrones' -- Left and Arab voices on the insurrection | Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == By *Dyab Abou Jahjah* January 16, 2011 -- The Tunisian revolution continues to dictate its own logic on all levels. After attempts by regime leftovers to spread chaos by several techniques (cars driving through the streets shooting at people and houses, randomly destroying infrastructure, etc.), the Tunisian people have organised themselves in committees that have spread all across the country in every neighbourhood and in every city and started patrolling the streets and protecting the people. Popular committees even chased the militias of the old regime and in one case in a shoot out a martyr fell and two militiamen were executed by the people. Articles and statements at http://links.org.au/node/2101 * 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 Or join the Links Facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10865397643 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
[Marxism] New Anti-Capitalist Party on Tunisia: 'Ben Ali assassin, Sarkozy accomplice!' | Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Statement by the *New Anti-Capitalist Party* (Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste) France, translated by *John Mullen* [This statement was released before the fall of Ben Ali. See Tunisia's intifada topples tyrant: 'Yezzi fock! http://links.org.au/node/2098.] January 11, 2011 -- When Mohamed Bouazizi committed suicide by setting fire to himself after being harassed by the police his act became the spark which is now setting fire to the whole of the miraculous Tunisia of General Ben Ali. Full statement at http://links.org.au/node/2100 * 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 Or join the Links Facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10865397643 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
[Marxism] The mainstream tolerance of right-wing extremism | rabble.ca
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://rabble.ca/columnists/2011/01/mainstream-tolerance-right-wing-extremism 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
[Marxism] What's new at Links: Arizona shootings, degrowth?, Cuba, statistics, US imperialism, Portugal, Marx, Ireland, Korea, Mao, Wikileaks Sweden
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == What's new at Links: Arizona shootings, degrowth?, Cuba, statistics, US imperialism, Portugal, Marx, Ireland, Korea, Mao, Wikileaks Sweden * * * *For more reliable delivery of new content, please 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 or on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10865397643 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. * * * Socialist Party USA: `No to political assassinations! Let's make a democratic revolution!' http://links.org.au/node/2090 By *Andrea Pason* *Billy Wharton*, co-chairs Socialist Party USA January 9, 2011 -- On behalf of the Socialist Party USA, we send our sincerest condolences to the families of the people killed in the January 8 shooting in Tucson, Arizona. This was an attempt at political assassination as the shooter, 22-year-old Jared Lee Loughner, reportedly shot Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (AZ, D.) in the head before turning his gun on the crowd. The dead include a 9 year child and five others, with twelve people wounded. Rep. Giffords remains in critical condition. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/2090 Capitalism and degrowth: An impossibility theorem http://links.org.au/node/2089 By *John Bellamy Foster * January 2011 -- In the opening paragraph to his 2009 book, /Storms of My Grandchildren, /James Hansen, the world's foremost scientific authority on global warming, declared: Planet Earth, creation, the world in which civilization developed, the world with climate patterns that we know and stable shorelines, is in imminent peril...The startling conclusion is that continued exploitation of all fossil fuels on Earth threatens not only the other millions of species on the planet but also the survival of humanity itself---and the timetable is shorter than we thought. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/2089 Why does health care in Cuba cost 96% less than in the US? http://links.org.au/node/2082 By *Don Fitz* January 5, 2011-- When Americans spend $100 on health care, is it possible that only $4 goes to keeping them well and $96 goes somewhere else? Single payer health care [government-funded universal health insurance] advocates compare US health care to that in Western Europe or Canada and come up with figures of 20--30% waste in the US. But there is one country with very low level of economic activity yet with a level of health care equal to the West: Cuba. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/2082 What if the state of the world were measured by its majority? http://links.org.au/node/2078 By *Tamara Pearson*, Merida, Venezuela December 30, 2010 -- The rich and their golf courses. From their perspective the whole world is one -- a wonderland of hillocks and streams and games made just for them, watered without thought for drought, and the world's poor nowhere to be seen. But a bit of the map has said it doesn't want to be a golf course. The rich, sweaty and sulking, arm themselves with reports, statistics, surveys, foundations, institutes and causes and set out to prove that Venezuela is burning and broken, its economy rumbling, its health system out of order, and its politics repressive. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/2078 US imperialist aggression in the early 21st century http://links.org.au/node/2088 [This talk by *Rasti Delizo *was presented at the regional socialism conference was held in Manila from November 27 to 28, 2010. The conference was organised by the socialist Partido Lakas ng Masa (Party of the Labouring Masses) and the socialist-feminist regional network Transform Asia.] * Read more http://links.org.au/node/2088 Cuba: Economy of commands or earnings? Joaquin Infante on economic changes http://links.org.au/node/2086 December 31, 2010 -- /Cuba's Socialist Renewal/ -- Coinciding with the beginning of the three-month-long public debate on the /Draft Economic and Social Policy Guidelines of the Party and Revolution/, the following two-page interview with //Dr Joaquin Infante, one of Cuba's veteran economists, appeared in /Juventud Rebelde/. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/2086 Portugal: More austerity looms in 2011 http://links.org.au/node/2085 By *Raphie de Santos* January 4, 2011 -- A full financial bailout of Portugal involving the European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) looks set to happen in the
[Marxism] Marx-Engels Gesamtausgabe (MEGA2): Has another Marx been revealed? | Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == January 2, 20100 -- /Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal///Logos/ The Russian journal /Logos/, one of the most important journals of philosophy in Russia, is publishing a special issue on Karl Marx in January 2011. It includes a translation of *Marcello Musto*'s The Rediscovery of Karl Marx and an extensive interview with Musto. Below is the English translation of the interview. * * * *You have published already several studies on Marx and many of them depart from the recent research situation created by the publication of **MEGA2 (**/Marx-Engels Gesamtausgabe/**, the new historico-critical editions of Marx and Engels' collected works)* http://marxdialecticalstudies.blogspot.com/2010/09/marx-engels-gesamtausgabe-mega-project.html*. Do you think that the new and hitherto unknown materials published there will change profoundly our picture of Marx and Marxism? * I have been working many years with the volumes of the /Marx-Engels Gesamtausgabe/ (MEGA2) and have tried to pay great attention, in my work, to the recent philological discoveries related to the writings of Marx already known but previously edited in an incorrect way, as well as to the previously unpublished materials, like the preparatory drafts of /Capital/ or Marx's notebooks of excerpts that appeared in the last few years. These materials, to give you an example, brought to light thousands of editorial interventions made by Engels to Marx's /magnum opus/ and demonstrated that, far from espousing a conclusive economic theory, volume II and III of /Capital/ were by and large provisional notes under development. Full interview at http://links.org.au/node/2083 * 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 Or join the Links Facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10865397643 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
[Marxism] What's new at Links: Ecological civilisation, Lebowitz Harnecker, Bangladesh, China, Greece, Wounded Knee, climate jobs, Haiti Cuba
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == What's new at Links: Ecological civilisation, Lebowitz Harnecker, Bangladesh, China, Greece, Wounded Knee, climate jobs, Haiti Cuba * * * *For more reliable delivery of new content, please 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 or on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10865397643 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. * * * Fred Magdoff: Creating an ecological civilisation http://links.org.au/node/2076 By *Fred Magdoff * /``It is inconceivable that capitalism itself will lead directly to an ecological civilization that provides the basic needs for all people. However, building an ecological civilization that is socially just will not automatically happen in post-capitalist societies. It will occur only through the concerted action and constant vigilance of an engaged population.''/ * Read more http://links.org.au/node/2076 Michael Lebowitz and Marta Harnecker: 21st century socialism -- the strategy of the left and the Latin American experience http://links.org.au/node/2072 December 13, 2010 -- Thessaloniki, Greece -- *Marta Harnecker* and *Michael Lebowitz* were invited by the N. Poulantzas Institute and /Transform/ magazine to present lectures on 21st century socialism: the strategy of the left and the Latin American experience. `Development', capitalism, NGOs and people's movements in Bangladesh: an interview with Anu Muhammad http://links.org.au/node/2075 December 28, 2010 -- *Anu Muhammad* is an eminent Marxist and a renowned academician from Bangladesh. He is currently serving as professor in the Department of Economics in Jahangirnagar University, Savar, Dhaka. He is also general secretary of National Committee to Protect Oil, Gas, Mineral Resources Power and Ports//and has been involved in various people's movements in Bangladesh. He, along with the committee, played an instrumental role in the success of the Phulbari Movement against Open Pit Mining in Phulbari, Bangladesh. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/2075 China: Workers' strikes -- what did they win? http://links.org.au/node/2074 // By *Boy Lüthje* December 23, 2010 /-/- 2010's auto worker strikes in South China reverberated throughout the country and overseas. As workers in supplier companies for Honda, Toyota and other auto multinationals downed tools, the international business press expressed fear over the rising power of workers in China. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/2074 Greece: PASOK, right wing in deep crisis; support for anti-capitalist left grows http://links.org.au/node/2070 By *Tassos Anastassiadis* and *Andreas Sartzekis* December 2010 -- Not so long ago the defeat of the right-wing candidates in the municipal elections in the two major cities in Greece, Athens and Thessaloniki, would have been followed by scenes of popular enthusiasm in the streets throughout the night. There was nothing like that this time, when the right was defeated in cities where it had ruled for decades! * Read more http://links.org.au/node/2070 United States: 120th anniversary of the massacre at Wounded Knee: The bloody birth of empire http://links.org.au/node/2069 ecember 29, 2010 -- Wounded Knee, December 29, 1890 is full of meaning. Not just for the Miniconjou and Hunkpapa Lakota who were victims and perished in their hundreds, but for the course of imperial America. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/2069 `Climate jobs' and the limits of growth -- latest edition of `One million climate jobs' pamphlet released http://links.org.au/node/2068 Review by *Özlem Onaran* * Read more http://links.org.au/node/2068 Cuban medics in Haiti put the world to shame (UK Independent) http://links.org.au/node/2067 By *Nina Lakhani* December 26, 2010 -- They are the real heroes of the Haitian earthquake disaster, the human catastrophe on America's doorstep which Barack Obama pledged a monumental US humanitarian mission to alleviate. Except these heroes are from [the United States'] arch-enemy Cuba, whose doctors and nurses have put US efforts to shame. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/2067 * * * Links seeks to promote the international exchange of information, experience of struggle, theoretical analysis and views of political strategy and tactics within the
[Marxism] China, Mao and the global neoliberal offensive | Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Review by *Chris Slee* */The Rise of China and the Demise of the Capitalist World-Economy/* By Minqi Li Monthly Review Press, New York, 2008 January 4, 2011 -- /Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal/ -- Minqi Li's /The Rise of China and the Demise of the Capitalist World-Economy/ deals with a range of topics including the history of the Chinese Revolution, China's role in the world economy today and the future of the world economy. This review will not deal with every aspect of the book, but will focus on Minqi Li's discussion of China's history, economics and politics, and its current role in the world. Full review at http://links.org.au/node/2079 * 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 Or join the Links Facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10865397643 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
[Marxism] What's new at Links: Cuba, Venezuela food, Venezuelan women's struggle, Tariq Ali on Mao, Germany 1923, Dickens
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == What's new at Links: Cuba, Venezuela food, Venezuelan women's struggle, Tariq Ali on Mao, Germany 1923, Dickens * * * *For more reliable delivery of new content, please 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 or on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10865397643 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. * * * Washington's war of terror against Cuba http://links.org.au/node/2066 By *Jane Franklin* September 25, 2010 -- On September 19, 1960, Fidel Castro and Malcolm X had an historic meeting in Harlem's Hotel Theresa. Fifty years later people packed a meeting hall in the Adam Clayton Powell State Office Building across 125th Street to commemorate that meeting. Among them were Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla and Cuban ambassador to the United Nations Pedro Núñez Mosquera. What a different kind of commemoration we could have had if such important leaders as Malcolm X, Patrice Lumumba, Martin Luther King, Jr., Fred Hampton and countless others had not been assassinated. When Malcolm X met with Fidel Castro they talked about Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba of the Congo, a leader whose importance for Africa and all of us was globally recognised. Only five days earlier, Lumumba had been overthrown by Colonel Joseph Mobutu with the support of the CIA. Four months later Lumumba was executed. And in less than five years assassination took away the life of Malcolm X himself. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/2066 Venezuela: Food sovereignty project launched http://links.org.au/node/2061 By *Lisa Macdonald *December 15, 2010 -- Nature is our home and is the system of which we form a part, and therefore it has infinite value, but it does not have a price and is not for sale, said a November 3-5 meeting of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA) nations of Venezuela, Bolivia, Cuba, Ecuador and Nicaragua. The ALBA declaration reflects and assists the development of a powerful /campesino/ (peasant) movement for agro-ecology and food sovereignty in Venezuela and other Latin American nations. It is a movement that Australian social activists *Dianne James* and *Dr Scott John* are keen to support and pass on to others. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/2061 Women and revolutionary transformation in Venezuela http://links.org.au/node/2059 By *Coral Wynter** Yoly Fernandez* lives in a /barrio/ in the city of Valencia in Venezuela. She has been involved in community politics all her life and is a member of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), headed by Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez. Fernandez works in Mission MERCAL, the government agency that sells subsidised food to the population. I interviewed her in May 2010. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/2059 Tariq Ali on Mao Zedong and communism in China http://links.org.au/node/2065 Review by *Tariq Ali* */Mao Zedong and China in the Twentieth-Century World/* By Rebecca E. Karl Duke University Press: Durham, NC 2010 paperback, 216 pages, 978 0 8223 4795 8. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/2065 The German Communist Party and the crisis of 1923 http://links.org.au/node/2064 By *Graham Milner* The German Communist Party (KPD) was founded in the very heat of revolutionary struggle. One of the party's major problems from the beginning was that it was formed as a separate organisation too late to influence significantly the course of the German Revolution of 1918-19. If there had been in existence at this time a mass revolutionary party along the lines of Lenin's Bolshevik party, then there could well have been a radical reconstruction of German society into a republic of workers' councils. Instead of such an outcome, the stunted bourgeois-democratic regime of Weimar came into being, in which most of the existing state machine, including the army, judiciary and civil service, was preserved intact. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/2064 Los seres humanos como centro de nuestro socialismo http://links.org.au/node/2063 Por *Federico Fuentes*, traducido por *Janet Duckworth* Resena sobre libro, /La alternativa socialista: el verdadero desarrollo humano/, de Michael Lebowitz La llegada de la crisis económica mundial a mediados de 2008, simbolizada por el colapso de algunas de las empresas más icónicas de Wall
[Marxism] Cuba: (English trans.) Economic and Social Policy Guidelines for the Party and the Revolution | Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == This document forms the basis of a discussion about Cuba's economic reforms that is taking place throughout the country. http://links.org.au/node/2037 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
[Marxism] Trotsky on Wikileaks (well, sort of) | Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://links.org.au/node/2030 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
[Marxism] Camila Piñeiro Harnecker: Risks in expanding non-state enterprises in the Cuban economy | Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == This article is intended to call attention to the most important negative consequences that the recently announced decision to permit free hiring of salaried labour could generate in Cuban society. It also attempts to suggest some measures to increase the possibilities that the new non-state enterprises (self-employment, cooperatives and conventional private businesses) may contribute to the development of the Cuban economy in consolidating our socialist development; that is, the creation of a more just and humane society. It is a synthesis drawn from the paper “New enterprise forms in the Cuban economy”, prepared for the seminar “Economy and administration” organised by the Economics Department of the University of Havana and Humboldt University, Berlin, September 24-25, 2010. Full article at http://links.org.au/node/2026 * 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 Or join the Links Facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10865397643 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
Re: [Marxism] A comment by Diana Johnstone on A Serbian film, Croats and Muslims, and the left
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == For an alternative viewpoint on the Balkans, see the articles collected here http://links.org.au/taxonomy/term/108 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
[Marxism] Michael Lebowitz discusses the socialist alternative and human development | Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Professor *Michael Lebowitz* discusses aspects of his book, /The Socialist Alternative: Real Human Development/, at the Maritime Labour Center in Vancouver, British Columbia, on October 17, 2010. Full video at http://links.org.au/node/2019 * 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 Or join the Links Facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10865397643 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
[Marxism] What's new at Links: Cancun climate talks, Ireland, Thailand, Ban the burqa?, China, oil, Hilferding's Finanz Kapital
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == What's new at Links: Cancun climate talks, Ireland, Thailand, Ban the burqa?, China, oil, Hilferding's Finanz Kapital * * * *For more reliable delivery of new content, please 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 or on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10865397643 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. * * * Battlelines drawn for Cancun climate summit: `Nature has no price!' http://links.org.au/node/2011 By *Simon Butler* November 22, 2010 -- If at first you don't succeed, redefine success. This phrase has become the unofficial motto of this year's United Nations climate conference in Cancun, Mexico. Just out from Cancun, which runs over November 29 to December 10, there is little hope of meaningful progress. Yet key players have sought to throw a shroud of official optimism over the looming failure. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/2011 Ireland: Fianna Fail/Greens cave in to EU/IMF on `bailout'; Left vows to fight austerity http://links.org.au/node/2009 November 23, 2010 -*- *The public finances of the 26-county state [Ireland] will, for the next three years at least, be subject to regular reviews by external monitors working on behalf of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the European Union (EU) and the British and Swedish governments. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/2009 Cancun climate summit should not be `Copenhagen Accord Part II', says Bolivia http://links.org.au/node/2015 Statement by the *Plurinational State of Bolivia* November 27, 2010 -- At the next meeting of the Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP 16), which begins November 29 in Cancun, Mexico, the 192 member states must agree on a second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/2015 Why calls for a ban on the wearing of the burqa help the racists http://links.org.au/node/2013 By *Pip Hinman * I do not support women being forced to wear the burqa. I see it as one manifestation of the myriad of ways women are oppressed in this patriarchal society. Having said that, I want to make it clear that I do not support a ban on the wearing of a burqa. Banning the wearing of a burqa would simply mean that the person who wears it -- voluntarily or otherwise -- is criminalised. It would not, as some female supporters of the ban argue, help women extricate themselves from patriarchal control over their lives. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/2013 Australia: A community says no to racist burqa bans http://links.org.au/node/2012 By *Peter Boyle*, Sydney November 26, 2010 -- All around the Western world, far-right groups (some with neo-Nazi orgins and links) are gaining political ground through an orchestrated campaign against Muslim communities. By spreading fear and hatred against recent immigrant communities from Muslim countries these groups have tapped into well-resourced post-9/11 war propaganda campaigns initiated by rulers of the world's richest and most powerful states. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/2012 Thailand: Six months on, emboldened Red Shirts raise new slogans; Interview with Sombat Boonngamanong http://links.org.au/node/2014 By *Lee Yu Kyung*, Bangkok November 26, 2010 -- Sombat Boonngamanong (42) is a man with a sunny smile, wearing a red shirt. After the April-May crackdown on the pro-democracy Red Shirts at Ratchprasong in central Bangkok, which killed more than 90 -- mostly civilians -- the Red Shirts briefly disappeared from the public eye while developing their outrage further but silently. It didn't take long for the Red Shirts to renew their campaign in public, to which Sombat has contributed significantly by encouraging that their silent anger be expressed in fun and festive street performances. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/2014 The left cannot ignore China's achievements, but neither can it be too celebratory http://links.org.au/node/2010 By*Michael Karadjis* November 24, 2010 -- I strongly agree with Reihana Mohideen (The left cannot ignore China's achievement in poverty reduction http://links.org.au/node/1941http://links.org.au/node/1941), that the left cannot simply ignore China's impressive achievements in poverty reduction and other related social development. I also agree very
[Marxism] Ireland: Fianna Fail/Greens cave in to EU/IMF on `bailout'; Left vows to fight austerity | Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Reacting to the announcement , Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams said the government has no mandate to do what it is doing. It has handed over authority for the state to outsiders in order to get a digout for the banks, which the Irish people will have to pay for. The government should resign so that citizens can have their say in a general election. Sinn Fein TD [member of Ireland's parliament, the Dail] Aengus O Snodaigh said on November 21 that the government should throw the IMF out of the country. Deputy O Snodaigh said Irish sovereignty was not something that Fianna Fail and the Green Party [coalition government] could sell off to the highest bidder. They have absolutely no mandate for any of what they are doing and they are acting against the wishes of the people. This government has brought the country to the brink of economic collapse and now they want to sell of our hard won sovereignty to the IMF. The history of the IMF in other countries is one of privatisation of vital public services and mass unemployment. But there is another way. It's time to burn the bondholders and nationalise Bank of Ireland and Allied Irish Bank. The government should throw the IMF out of the country before resigning and calling a general election. Irish sovereignty is not something that Fianna Fail and the Green Party can sell off to the highest bidder. Full articles and statements from the Irish left at http://links.org.au/node/2009 * 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 Or join the Links Facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10865397643 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
[Marxism] The left cannot ignore China’s achie vements, but neither can it be too celebratory | Lin ks International Journal of Socialist Renewal
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == By*Michael Karadjis* November 24, 2010 – /Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal/ -- I strongly agree with Reihana Mohideen (“The left cannot ignore China’s achievement in poverty reduction http://links.org.au/node/1941”http://links.org.au/node/1941), that the left cannot simply ignore China’s impressive achievements in poverty reduction and other related social development. I also agree very much with Reihana that the main source of China’s outstanding success as a Third World capitalist power is to be found in the Chinese revolution itself, despite the undoing of its socialist basis and the uncontrolled capitalist development that has taken its place. Full article at http://links.org.au/node/2010 * 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 Or join the Links Facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10865397643 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
[Marxism] What's new at Links: Thailand, Venezuela, espanol, Cuba, France, Haiti, Malaysia, S.Africa, Victor Serge, Afghanistan
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == What's new at Links: Thailand, Venezuela, espanol, Cuba, France, Haiti, Malaysia, S.Africa, Victor Serge, Afghanistan * * * 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 or on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10865397643 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. * * * Thailand: Red Shirts flood centre of Bangkok again http://links.org.au/node/2002 By *Peter Boyle*, photos by*CBN Press* November 19, 2010 -- Thousands of supporters of the Thailand's Red Shirt (the popular name for supporters of the United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship) movement once again turned Bangkok's busy Ratchaprasong Intersection into a sea of red. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/2002 Join the May Day 2011 solidarity brigade to Venezuela! April 25--May 4, 2011 http://links.org.au/node/1993 The Australia-Venezuela Solidarity Network invites you to observe first-hand the inspiring Bolivarian revolution in Venezuela. The sweeping social changes being carried out by Venezuela's people's power movements are radically transforming life for the majority in that country - workers, women, Indigenous people, young people and all those who have suffered the injustices of poverty, exploitation and exclusion that accompany corporate globalisation. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1993 `Foro Social Latinamericano', Green Left Weekly's Spanish-language supplement, November 2010 issue http://links.org.au/node/2005 November 22, 2010 -- For environmentalists, Indigenous rights activists, feminists, socialists and all progressive people, Latin America is a source of hope and inspiration today. The people of Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia, Ecuador and El Salvador, among others, are showing that radical social change is possible and a better, more just society can be imagined and built. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/2005 Cubans discuss economic changes: `It is the people who will decide' http://links.org.au/node/2004 ** http://links.org.au/taxonomy/term/31 November 19, 2010 -- The 6th congress of the Communist Party of Cuba will take place in April 2011 and the only topic of discussion will be the analysis of the country's economic and social model. Prior to the congress, from December 2010 through February 2011, a process of popular debate will unfold based on a fundamental party document entitled The Economic and Social Policy Development Project, which is already in the hands of the people. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/2004 France: Movement debates next steps in resistance to government attacks http://links.org.au/node/2003 By *Chris Latham* November 14, 2010 -- President Nicolas Sarkozy enacted a new law on November 10 that increases the retirement age of French workers. The move came just days after more than a million workers and students mobilised across France against the law. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/2003 Haiti: Sham `selection' serves interests of wealthy elite and foreign powers' http://links.org.au/node/2001 By the *Canada Haiti Action Network* November 12, 2010 -- The Canada Haiti Action Network (CHAN) is once again expressing its grave concerns about exclusionary elections in Haiti. It joins with the many Haitians as well as human rights organisations in Haiti and abroad in condemning these elections as serving the interests of Haiti's wealthy elite and the foreign powers that have dominated Haiti's past and present. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/2001 Malaysia: `No one is indispensable we often hear, but for the PSM ... Bala is indispensable' http://links.org.au/node/2000 By *Rani Rasiah, *Socialist Party of Malaysia deputy secretary general November 17, 2010 -- Comrade G. Balasundram was stabbed to death on November 16, 2010. He is really, truly no more, but the mind refuses to register this unacceptable reality. That's because he was so alive, bubbling with life, loud, boisterous. So many of us have seen him, or had a meal with him or got a call or a witty sms from him just in the 24 hours before his sudden and tragic death. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/2000 Thailand: Red Shirts plan another major rally http://links.org.au/node/1999 By *Peter Boyle* November 18, 2010 -- Supporters of Thailand's opposition Red Shirt movement are preparing another major
[Marxism] Scotland: Respect votes to split left vote, Galloway opposes independence | Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On November 13, 2010, the English left-wing organisation Respect’s annual conference voted, 59 to 15, to begin organising in Scotland. The decision was preceded by the most prominent Respect leader and former MP George Galloway floating the idea that he stand for the Scottish Parliament, either as part of a Respect campaign or an independent George 4 Glasgow campaign. Below are a number of articles from the Scottish and English left on Respect's move into Scotland. Full at http://links.org.au/node/1991 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
[Marxism] What's new at Links: Indonesia, Cuba medicine, S.Korea, burqa debate, Galloway does Glasgow, Zim, Green Party, Story of Electronics
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == What's new at Links: Indonesia, Cuba medicine, S.Korea, burqa debate, Galloway does Glasgow, Zim, Green Party, Story of Electronics * * * *For more reliable delivery of new content, please 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 or on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10865397643 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. * * * Indonesia: Activists set up Merapi disaster relief centres http://links.org.au/node/1986 /Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal/ readers can make donations to those affected by the Mt Merapi eruption to the following account: *Bank: (Bank Central Asia) BCA Branch: KCP BCA Tebet Barat Account holder: Tejo Priyono Account Number: 436 149 72 14* * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1986 Cuba: Reversing the medical `brain drain' -- the many faces of ELAM http://links.org.au/node/1984 By *Don Fitz*, Havana November 7, 2010 -- Cuba is doing more than any other country in the world to reverse the brain drain of doctors abandoning impoverished areas. A physician who leaves Sierra Leone for South Africa can earn 20 times as much. Higher pay in English-speaking countries lures medical graduates from India (10.6% of doctors), Pakistan (11.7%), Sri Lanka (27.5%), and Jamaica (41.7%). Only 50 of 600 doctors trained in Zambia remained there after independence. There are more Ethiopian doctors in Chicago than in Ethiopia. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1984 South Korea: First-hand report -- Day 1 of the anti-G20 Seoul International People's Conference -- Army of cops prevent march http://links.org.au/node/1981 *Roddy Quines* is a Socialist Alliance of Australia http://www.socialist-alliance.org member living in South Korea. This is his first-hand account of the first day of anti-G20 actions on November 7, 2010, in Seoul. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1981 Australia -- burqa ban debate: If I can't wear a burqa it's not my revolution? http://links.org.au/node/1992 On September 23, the /Daily Telegraph/ reported on a wall mural in the Sydney inner-west suburb of Newtown by artist Sergio Redegalli with the slogan Say no to burqas. Redegalli's mural has sparked protests by local residents who have condemned it as racist. Sydney Socialist Alliance activist *Kiraz Janicke* says Redegalli's piece has no other value than to promote racism. She has responded with an artwork of her own titled Burqa revolution. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1992 Scotland: Respect votes to split left vote, Galloway opposes independence http://links.org.au/node/1991 On November 13, 2010, the English left-wing organisation Respect's annual conference voted, 59 to 15, to begin organising in Scotland. The decision was preceded by the most prominent Respect leader and former MP *George Galloway* floating the idea that he stand for the Scottish Parliament, either as part of a Respect campaign or an independent George 4 Glasgow campaign. Below are a number of articles from the Scottish and English left on Respect's move into Scotland. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1991 South Korea: Epic Ssangyong workers' strike remembered http://links.org.au/node/1989 * Watch the report here http://links.org.au/node/1989 Will Zimbabwe again regress? http://links.org.au/node/1988 By *Patrick Bond*, Bulawayo November 12, 2010 -- If leaders of a small African country stand up with confidence to imperialist aggression, especially from the US and Britain, it would ordinarily strike any fair observer as extremely compelling. Especially when the nightmare of racist colonialism in that country is still be to exorcised, whites hold a disproportionate share of economic power and state's rulers appear serious about changing those factors. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1988 Britain: Understanding the Green Party http://links.org.au/node/1987 November 2, 2010 -- *Derek Wall* is an economics lecturer and writer. He has been a member of the Green Party since 1980 and was Green Party principal speaker from 2006 to 2007. He is a founder of the Ecosocialist International and Green Left [an organised ecosocialist group within the Green Party] and has written widely on green politics. His latest books are /The Rise of the Green Left/ and /The No-Nonsense Guide to Green Politics/. In this
[Marxism] Lars T. Lih: ‘We must dream!’ Echoes of `What Is to Be Done?’ in Lenin’s later career | Links International Journal of Socialist Ren ewal
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == By *Lars T. Lih* I appreciate the opportunity to look again at Lenin’s /What Is to Be Done?/—especially since I have just completed a biographical study of Lenin’s career as a whole (/Lenin/, forthcoming in the Critical Lives series by Reaktion Books). One of the things I found—to tell the truth, somewhat unexpectedly—was a series of echoes of /What Is to Be Done?/ throughout Lenin’s entire career. So I thought it would be useful to talk about some of the basic themes of Lenin’s book and tie each of these themes to later echoes. Full article at http://links.org.au/node/1980 * 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 Or join the Links Facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10865397643 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
[Marxism] What's new at Links: Lars T. Lih on Lenin, Tamils, consumerism, Haiti, S.Africa, Stephen Hawkings, Malaysia, curruption, Cuba, India, Arabic
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == What's new at Links: Lars T. Lih on Lenin, Tamils, consumerism, Haiti, S.Africa, Stephen Hawkings, Malaysia, curruption, Cuba, India, Arabic * * * *For more reliable delivery of new content, please 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 or on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10865397643 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. * * * Tamil refugee: `Why I fled to Australia http://links.org.au/node/1973 By *Sue Bolton*, Melbourne This year is the 15th anniversary of the Nargar Kovil school massacre in Tamil Eelam, the Tamil area of Sri Lanka. On September 22, 1995, the Sri Lankan Air Force (SLAF) bombed Nargar Kovil Maha Vidyalayam schoolyard, which was crammed with 750 children on their lunch break. Reports of the number of children killed vary from 26 to 70. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1973 `Productivism' or liberation? Socialists debate consumerism http://links.org.au/node/1972 By *Ben Courtice*, Melbourne November 2, 2010 -- In a recent seminar on trade unions and the climate movement, I observed a surprising disagreement between some of the socialists present. It was started by a comment from Melbourne University academic (and Socialist Alliance activist) Hans Baer, who suggested that the treadmill of production and consumption had to be challenged, that we need to challenge consumerism and the alienation of work that makes people buy things to feel better. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1972 Peter Hallward: Haiti 2010 -- Exploiting disaster http://links.org.au/node/1971 With Peter Hallward's permission, /Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal/ is making available the Afterword to the 2010 paperback edition of Hallward's /Damming the Flood: Haiti and the Politics of Containment/ (Verso, 2010), published in November. * Read more or download http://links.org.au/node/1971 Lars T. Lih: 'We must dream!' Echoes of `What Is to Be Done?' in Lenin's later career http://links.org.au/node/1980 [Talk given at the US International Socialist Organization's /Socialism 2010/ conference, Chicago, June 2010. Posted at /Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal/ with Lars Lih's permission. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1980 South Africa: ANC leaders attack COSATU http://links.org.au/node/1979 By *John Haylett * November 5, 2010 -- Relations between the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and sections of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) plumbed new depths this week following a union-initiated Civil Society conference. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1979 Stephen Hawking's `The Grand Design': `Ousting God from science' http://links.org.au/node/1978 Review by *Christos Kefalis* Stephen Hawking has frequently been called the most eminent natural scientist of our age. Justifiably so, since the renovation of all natural science by someone stuck in a wheelchair, his brain being the only remaining functional part of his body, is something we do not see every day. Besides showing the limitless horizons of the human mind, Hawking offers precious proof of the strength of the will and of the creative potential of humanity, which will fully blossom only in a different society, free from exploitation, vulgarity and the mean motives borne of the pursuit of profit. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1978 Malaysia: The minimum wage farce http://links.org.au/node/1977 By *Rani Rasiah* November 2, 2010 -- On 1 May 1996, Jawatankuasa Sokongan Masyarakat Ladang (JSML), the plantation workers' coalition of Jeringan Rakyat Tertindas (JERIT, the Oppressed People's Network), launched the campaign for a minimum monthly wage for estate workers. It called for a total revamp of the highly exploitative colonial wage system which assigned estate workers a daily wage that was subject to market price, weather conditions and crop yield, all factors beyond the control of the worker. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1977 Australia: Corruption tactics --- outrage management in a local government scandal http://links.org.au/node/1976 By *Brian Martin* November 5, 2010 --- A mobilised citizenry is a threat to corrupt operations. Therefore, those involved in behaviours potentially labelled as corrupt have an interest in minimising public outrage. Five ways of
Re: [Marxism] NZ: Militant Unite union leader to contest by-election
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Also, an excellent radio interview with Matt McCarten at http://links.org.au/node/1962 Also deals with Matt's contacts with Peter Camejo and Jim Percy. 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
[Marxism] Ecuador, Venezuela: Danger south of the border | Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == By *Paul Kellogg * October 26, 2010 -- It is not difficult to see that the events of September 30, in the Latin American country of Ecuador, amounted to an attempted right-wing coup d’état. Mass mobilisations in the streets and plazas of Quito (the capital) and other cities – in conjunction with action by sections of the armed forces which stayed loyal to the government – stopped the coup before the day was out. But those few hours highlighted, again, the deep dangers facing those fighting for progressive change in Latin America and the Caribbean. Remarkably, the first task is to re-assert that in fact a coup attempt took place. In the wake of the failure of the coup, commentator after commentator was trying to minimise what happened. Peruvian “libertarian” Álvaro Vargas Llosa – darling of the World Economic Forum and outspoken critic of Che Guevara and the current governments of Bolivia and Venezuela – insists that it was not a coup just an “ill-advised, violent protest by the police against a law that cut their benefits”. Let us examine the facts... http://links.org.au/node/1960 * 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 Or join the Links Facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10865397643 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
[Marxism] What's new at Links: France, Britain, John Bellamy Foster, Scotland, Afghanistan, 1 million visits, microcredit, Lenin, Marx Eurocentric?, Venezuela, Greens, S.Asia
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == What's new at Links: France, Britain, John Bellamy Foster, Scotland, Afghanistan, 1 million visits, microcredit, Lenin, Marx Eurocentric?, Venezuela, Greens, S.Asia * * * *For more reliable delivery of new content, please 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 or on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10865397643 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. * * * France: The movement is far from over; Olivier Besancenot defends mass mobilisations to defeat Sarkozy http://links.org.au/node/1956 By *Sandra Demarcq* October 23, 2010 -- Since May, the political situation in France has been marked by the mobilisations against changes to the pension law. Days of mobilisation succeed days of mobilisation, the movement against pension reform continues to develop and put down roots. It is the confirmation of a profound movement massively rejecting not only [the pension changes] but more broadly French President Nicholas Sarkozy's anti-social, racist and authoritarian policies as a whole. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1956 Britain: Con-Dem government to roll back social gains won since WWII http://links.org.au/node/1951 By *Raphie de Santos *October 21, 2010 -- The Conservative Party-Liberal Democrat Party (Con-Dem) coalition government has announced the most severe cuts in public spending since the great depression of the 1930s. The £81 billion (bn) of announced cuts and the £30 bn of tax increases for the next four fiscal years starting in April 2011 are on top of the already announced £8bn cuts for this fiscal year. Add in the hidden cuts (the National Health Service) and it all amounts to a rolling back of a large part of the gains that people have fought to establish since the end of the second world war. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1951 John Bellamy Foster: The ecology of consumption -- excerpt from `The Ecological Rift: Capitalism's War on the Earth' http://links.org.au/node/1947 October 20, 2010 -- /Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal/, with the permission of Monthly Review Press, is excited to offer its readers an excerpt from the /The Ecological Rift: Capitalism's War on the Earth/, an important new book by *John Bellamy Foster, Brett Clark* and *Richard York*. You can download (in PDF) the chapter * Download or read here http://links.org.au/node/1947 1,000,000th visitor to Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal http://links.org.au/node/1946 October 20, 2010 -- In the early hours of October 20, 2010, /Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal/ passed an historic milestone -- its 1,000,000th visitor (since statistics began being kept on April 4, 2008). The unknown visitor entered site at Renfrey Clarke's essential article, The new climate-change denialism: Who promotes it, and how to answer it. Those 1 million visitors have collectively read more than 1.33 million articles since April 2008. /Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal/'s mission has been to promote the revival of a democratic, ecological, thinking, activist socialism, and to encourage and publicise the activities and views of active socialists around the world who are rebuilding the socialist and radical alternative in deed as well as word. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1946 Grameen Bank and `microcredit': The `wonderful story' that never happened http://links.org.au/node/1955 Far from being a panacea for fighting rural poverty, microcredit can impose additional burdens on the rural poor, without markedly improving their socio-economic condition, write *Patrick Bond* and *Khorshed Alam*. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1955 Lars T. Lih: Scotching the myths about Lenin's `What is to be done' http://links.org.au/node/1953 By *Lars T. Lih* October 21 2010 -- /What is to be done? /was written for the first time in Russian between the autumn of 1901 and spring of 1902. It was a success among the rather limited number of people he was addressing: namely the people in the social-democratic [as revolutionary socialism was still know as] movement in Russia and interested parties. Of course, this audience was not sufficient to make it a real bestseller, but it did have an impact. When we look at the pamphlet today we want to have a sense of when, why and for whom he
Re: [Marxism] More on Indian Maoism
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == See the CPI (ML) Liberation's anaysis at: Part 1: http://www.cpiml.org/liberation/year_2009/dec_09/article.html Part 2: http://www.cpiml.org/liberation/year_2010/jan_10/article.html Part 3: http://www.cpiml.org/liberation/year_2010/feb_10/article.html Part 4: http://www.cpiml.org/liberation/year_2010/march_10/article.html 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
[Marxism] YouTube - Dan La Botz The Need for a Political Alternative -- ISO Forum
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[Marxism] John Bellamy Foster: The ecology of consumption -- excerpt from `The Ecological Rift: Ca pitalism’s War on the Earth' | Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == October 20, 2010 -- /Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal/, with the permission of Monthy Review Press, is excited to offer its readers an excerpt from the /The Ecological Rift: Capitalism’s War on the Earth/, an important new book by *John Bellamy Foster, Brett Clark* and *Richard York*. * * * In /The Ecological Rift: Capitalism’s War on the Earth/, environmental sociologists John Bellamy Foster, Brett Clark and Richard York offer a radical assessment of both the problem and the solution. They argue that the source of our ecological crisis lies in the paradox of wealth in capitalist society, which expands individual riches at the expense of public wealth, including the wealth of nature. In the process, a huge ecological rift is driven between human beings and nature, undermining the conditions of sustainable existence: a rift in the metabolic relation between humanity and nature that is irreparable within capitalist society, since integral to its very laws of motion. *John Bellamy Foster* is editor of the US-based Marxist journal, /Monthly Review/. He is professor of sociology at the University of Oregon and author of /The Ecological Revolution/, /The Great Financial Crisis/ (with Fred Magdoff), /Critique of Intelligent Design/ (with Brett Clark and Richard York), /Ecology Against Capitalism/, /Marx’s Ecology/, and /The Vulnerable Planet/. *Brett Clark* is assistant professor of sociology at North Carolina State University. He is coauthor (with John Bellamy Foster and Richard York) of /Critique of Intelligent Design/. *Richard York* is associate professor of sociology at the University of Oregon. He is co-editor of the journal /Organization Environment/ and coauthor (with John Bellamy Foster and Brett Clark) of /Critique of Intelligent Design/. ** Download or read The ecology of consumption at http://links.org.au/node/1947 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 Or join the Links Facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10865397643 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
[Marxism] 1, 000, 000th visitor to Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal | Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Message of congratulations and solidarity can be left in the comments box at http://links.org.au/node/1946 ! ** October 20, 2010 -- In the early hours of October 20, 2010, /Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal/ passed an historic milestone -- its 1,000,000th visitor (since statistics began being kept on April 4, 2008). The unknown visitor entered site at Renfrey Clarke's essential article, The new climate-change denialism: Who promotes it, and how to answer it http://links.org.au/node/1942. Those 1 million visitors have collectively read more than 1.33 million articles since April 2008. /Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal/'s mission has been to promote the revival of a democratic, ecological, thinking, activist socialism, and to encourage and publicise the activities and views of active socialists around the world who are rebuilding the socialist and radical alternative in deed as well as word. /Links/' success is especially gratifying because there were some who claimed -- when we took the decision to go solely online, rather than continue to produce the excellent but largely unread hard-copy version -- that /Links/ was being closed down and was part of an abandonment of our fundamental socialist principles. Well, there are now more than a million arguments against that pessimistic forecast. /Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal/ would like to thank all its readers, contributors, collaborators and well wishers for their assistance in passing this important milestone, in particular the comrades of the Socialist Alliance and /Green Left Weekly/ in Australia, without whom /Links/ could not appear. We'd like give special mention to our comrades in /Socialist Voice/ in Canada, the Socialist Party of Malaysia, the Labour Party Pakistan, the Partido Lakas ng Masa in the Philippines, the People's Democratic Party (Indonesia) and Working People's Association (Indonesia), Patrick Bond from South Africa, and many other left parties, workers' groups, liberation movements and individual activists who have made /Links/ an important asset for the entire world socialist movement. Don't YOU miss an article, subscribe at http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=343373 or follow /Links/ at http://twitter.com/LinksSocialism. You can also join the /Links/ Facebook group http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10865397643. 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
[Marxism] What's new at Links: Climate denialism, Cuba, Greens class, China, Energy efficiency, BDS, Foro Social Latinamericano, France, Thailand
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == What's new at Links: Climate denialism, Cuba, Greens class, China, Energy efficiency, BDS, Foro Social Latinamericano, France, Thailand * * * *For more reliable delivery of new content, please 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 or on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10865397643 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. * * * The new climate-change denialism: Who promotes it, and how to answer it http://links.org.au/node/1942 // *By Renfrey Clarke* October 15, 2010 -- You remember the scandal provoked by the errors and exaggerations in the 2007 report by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)? And you know all about the even bigger Climategate scandal last year, when stolen emails revealed that leading climate scientists were manipulating data to fit their alarmist political agenda? Now we have the next instalment. In a new /Guide to the Science of Climate Change/ the world's top science body, Britain's Royal Society, has quit playing politics and stopped peddling its claims of looming disaster. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1942 Cuban Revolution: challenges and change http://links.org.au/node/1939 By *Dave Holmes* [This article and slideshow were presented as a talk to the Geelong branch of Socialist Alliance on October 6, 2010.] * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1939 Australia: A response to Socialist Alternative on the Greens and class http://links.org.au/node/1938 By *Nick Fredman* October 13, 2010 -- Ben Hillier's article, A Marxist critique of the Australian Greens contains some useful information and analysis on the Australian Greens, a formation that has achieved a significant breakthrough in the recent federal election. Hillier is correct, generally, in writing of the Greens' populist left nationalism and middle class ideological basis. But he over-emphasises the sociologically middle-class nature of the Greens' voting base (and probably membership), as part of a general confusion on class today. In a related error, he is quite wrong, and quite sectarian, to state that the Greens do not in any sense represent an alternative to the ALP [Australian Labor Party]. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1938 The left cannot ignore China's achievement in poverty reduction http://links.org.au/node/1941 // By *Reihana Mohideen* October 15, 2010 -- China's achievements in reducing poverty have been outstanding. From 1978 -- when the restructuring of the Chinese economy began -- to 2007 the incidence of rural poverty dropped from 30.7% in 1978 to 1.6% in 2007. The biggest drop took place between 1978 and 1984 when the number of rural poor almost halved, from 250 million in 1978 to 125 million in 1985. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1941 The limits to energy efficiency under capitalism http://links.org.au/node/1940 By *Simon Butler* October 9, 2010 -- It is close to an article of faith among environmentalists that using less energy is a big part of the solution to climate change. Energy efficiency is often said to be the low hanging fruit of climate policy. On face value, the benefits seem obvious. However, strong evidence has emerged that new energy efficient technologies alone won't do much to cut emissions. Indeed, in a capitalist economy, it's very likely that energy efficiency gains will lead to higher energy use, not less. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1940 Palestine: BDS movement recalls anti-apartheid tactics, responsibilities and controversies http://links.org.au/node/1937 By *Patrick Bond*, Ramallah October 13, 2010 -- On a full-day drive through the Jordan Valley late last month, we skirted the Earth's oldest city and lowest inhabited point, 400 metres below sea level. For 10,000 years, people have lived along the river that separates the present-day West Bank and Jordan. Since 1967 the river has been augmented by Palestinian blood, sweat and tears, ending in the Dead Sea, from which no water flows; it only evaporates. Conditions degenerated during Israel's land-grab, when from a peak of more than 300,000 people living on the west side of the river, displacements shoved Palestinian refugees across into Jordan and other parts of the West Bank. The valley has fewer than 60,000 Palestinians today. * Read more
[Marxism] What's new at Links: Ecuador coup, Afghan war, Thailand, Mondragon co-op, BDS Israel, S.Africa, Cuban revolution, Alex Callinicos
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == What's new at Links: Ecuador coup, Afghan war, Thailand, Mondragon co-op, BDS Israel, S.Africa, Cuban revolution, Alex Callinicos * * * *For more reliable delivery of new content, please 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 or on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10865397643 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. * * * Ecuador: Coup defeat reveals Correa's strengths and weaknesses http://links.org.au/node/1932 By *Duroyan Fertl* October 8, 2010 -- The attempted coup d'etat in Ecuador on September 30, 2010, against the left-wing government of Rafael Correa was defeated by loyal troops and the mass mobilisation of Correa's supporters. The event underscores the turbulent history of the small Andean country. It also reveals some of the weaknesses of Ecuador's revolutionary movement, which is part of a broader Latin American movement against US domination and for regional unity and social justice. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1932 War on Afghanistan: a crime against humanity http://links.org.au/node/1930 Statement by the *Socialist Alliance* (Australia) national executive October 8, 2010 -- On October 17, 2001 the _Australian government deployed troops to Afghanistan_, just nine days after the US had begun bombing one of the most poverty-stricken and war-weary countries on Earth. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1930 Thailand: Interview with Red Sunday leader Sombat Boonngamanong http://links.org.au/node/1928 October 6, 2010 -- *Sombat Boonngamanong*, a cultural activist and NGO organiser, was not one of the central leaders of the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (popularly known as the Red Shirts) when their mass protest camp (at the Ratchaprasong intersection in the heart of Bangkok) was bloodily dispersed by the Thai military on May 19, 2010. Thousands were injured, 91 killed and hundreds have become political prisoners in this crackdown. But Sombat has since emerged as a popular figure in the dramatic Red Shirts' resurgence over the last month. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1928 Mondragon: A path to 21st century socialism? http://links.org.au/node/1933 By *Louis Proyect* October 11, 2010 -- On day five of Carl Davidson's visit to Mondragon http://links.org.au/node/1918, he alludes to a transition to a Third Wave future by the Basque cooperative. The Fagor pressure cookers might be phased out in favour of the high-design and high-touch products of a third wave future in a knowledge economy. In order to succeed in this new business, Mondragon would have to develop new entrepreneurs, according to Isabel Uriberen Tesia, a Mexican on the Mondragon staff. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1933 In defence of South African academics' successful call for a boycott of Israel http://links.org.au/node/1931 //By the *Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel* (PACBI) Occupied Ramallah, September 30, 2010 -- PACBI welcomes the decision[1] on September 29, 2010, by the Senate of the University of Johannesburg (UJ) not to continue a long-standing relationship with Ben Gurion University (BGU) in Israel in its present form and to set conditions for the relationship to continue. The fact that the UJ Senate set an ultimatum[2] of six months for BGU to end its complicity with the occupation army and to end policies of racial discrimination against Palestinians is a truly significant departure from the business-as-usual attitude that had governed agreements between the two institutions until recently. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1931 South African splinters: From `elite transition' to `small-a alliances' http://links.org.au/node/1929 [The following article first appeared in AfricaFile's //At Issue Ezine/, /vol. 12 (May-October 2010), edited by *John S. Saul*, which examines the development of the southern African liberation movement-led countries. It has been posted at /Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal/ with permission.] By *Patrick Bond* * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1929 Workers in the Russian and Cuban revolutions http://links.org.au/node/1927 By *Chris Slee* October 4, 2010 -- This is a response to Cuba: Stalinism isn't socialism http://enpassant.com.au/?p=647, by John Passant, a prominent member of
[Marxism] Coup in Ecuador thwarted | SocialistWorker.org
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[Marxism] Mexico's PRT: Ecuador - Stop the coup attempt in Ecuador against the Correa government
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[Marxism] Socialist Alliance: Message of solidarity to US socialists and anti-war activists raided by FBI
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == *Socialist Alliance: Message of solidarity to US socialists and anti-war activists raided by FBI* The Socialist Alliance (Australia) reaches out in comradely solidarity to the socialist and anti-war activists in the US who were subjected to early-morning raids on their homes and offices by the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) in Minneapolis, Chicago, Michigan and North Carolina on September 24. We understand that the FBI seized computers, passports, books, documents, cell phones, photos, financial records, diaries, maps and other materials using warrants were issued under a 1996 statute which made it a crime for US citizens to provide “material assistance” to any organisation designated by the government as “terrorist.” We condemn these raids and demand that the property seized be immediately returned and the victims of the raids be fully compensated. We also call for the revocation of the anti-democratic grand jury subpoenas against some of the raided activists. We will also approach other organisations and activists to discuss and plan solidarity with the activists now being victimised under US terrorism laws. Similar anti-terrorism laws http://www.socialist-alliance.org/page.php?page=310 have been introduced in Australia and they have been used most viciously against members of the Muslim, Sri Lankan Tamil and, most recently, Kurdish http://www.socialist-alliance.org/page.php?page=1015 communities. Australians David Hicks http://www.socialist-alliance.org/page.php?page=719 and Mamdouh Habib http://www.socialist-alliance.org/page.php?page=369, former Guantanamo detainees -- and in the case of Habib a victim of US torture rendition -- continue to be harassed and restricted by the post-11/9 anti-terrorism regime in Australia. In 2005, US anti-war activist Scott Parkin http://www.socialist-alliance.org/page.php?page=482, was arrested, detained and then deported on the grounds of “national security. He has been denied the right to legally challenge what many experts have deemed to be a clear abuse of the law and democratic rights. In 2007, Dr Mohamed Haneef*,* an Indian medical practitioner employed in an Australian hospital was arrested, detained and finally deported with no justification on anti-terrorism. The Australian Federal Police leaked false information to the press in an attempt to justify their treatment of Dr Haneef but later an official inquiry found that they had no grounds to arrest and detain Dr Haneef. Haneef's subsequent deportation was legitimised by the government arbitrarily cancelling his visa. Protests initiated by Socialist Alliance http://www.socialist-alliance.org/page.php?page=672 on this case received global media coverage and extensive coverage in India. In February this year, Alejandro Rodriguez, a Latin American-Australian activist, was detained and interrogated by the Australia political police because of his efforts in solidarity with the progressive movements in Latin America, and Colombia in particular. The Socialist Alliance continues to protest against and campaign for the repeal of the anti-democratic terrorism laws in Australia hand in hand with our campaigning against the imperialist wars of aggression, in which the Australian government is also complicit. Socialist Alliance also campaigns for a Bill of Rights http://www.socialist-alliance.org/page.php?page=675, which Australia still does not have. An injury to one is an injury to all. End terrorism by ending the imperialist wars of terror against Afghanistan, Iraq and other nations, and by ending the war on civil liberties conducted in the guise of fighting terrorism. (Adopted by the Socialist Alliance National Executive on October 1, 2010.) 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
[Marxism] Protest the coup underway in Ecuador; Chavez leads condemnation; Correa: 'I'm not going to give up' | Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal
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[Marxism] Cuba: Economic changes and the future of socialism -- interview with Cuban professor José Bell Lara | Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Dr *José Bell Lara*, professor at the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Havana (FLACSO-Cuba), interviewed by *Johannes Wilm*. Bell Lara has written essays such as Globalisation and Cuban Revolution (2002) and Cuban socialism within Globalisation (2007), and is part of the international advisory board of the journal /Critical Sociology/. This interview was conducted in Havana in September 2010. * * * *Johannes Wilm: The Cuban government recently announced some changes. Among other things, it will be possible for more people to work independently. What is it that Cubans expect from these changes? * *José Bell Lara:* This is a time of deep economic crisis globally. And of course Cuba is affected by this crisis. For the Cuban economy it has, taken together with the the embargo by the United States, a strong impact. To maintain the socialist project it is necessary to achieve an efficient functioning of the economy. In this sense, we must extend factors that can increase productivity and better conditions of life. For a long time we have had a paternalistic policy on the part of the Cuban state when it came to state employment. There is more personnel than is needed. Where it takes five people, we have eight. Those who can produce more, produce less... We have to find the optimal number of employees in the state sector, while simultaneously giving opportunities for the extra workforce to be employed meaningfully. In Cuba no one will end up unemployed due to our social protection mechanisms. In any country in Europe or North America, the surplus workforce would simply be sent home with four to six weeks' of state aid. Here, together with seeking greater efficiency in the state sector, other possibilities are opened, such as working independently and through the cooperatisation of many activities. Full interview at http://links.org.au/node/1916 * 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 Or join the Links Facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10865397643 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
[Marxism] What's new at Links: Venezuela, MDGs, Thailand, Sweden, Cuba, FBI raids left, John Coltrane, Pakistan
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == What's new at Links: Venezuela, MDGs, Thailand, Sweden, Cuba, FBI raids left, John Coltrane, Pakistan * * * *For more reliable delivery of new content, please 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 or on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10865397643 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. * * * Sweden: Far-right election gains met with spontaneous mass protests http://links.org.au/node/1905 By *Johann Sommansson* September 23, 2010 -- The counting of votes in the September 19 Swedish parliamentary elections sent out shock waves. The far right made its parliamentary debut, and for the first time in modern Swedish political history an incumbent non-Social Democrats government has been able to win a national election. As such, the process of dismantling the Swedish welfare state is set to continue unabated. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1905 Thailand: What the September 19 mass Red Shirt rallies mean for Thai politics http://links.org.au/node/1902 By *Giles Ji Ungpakorn* September 21, 2010 -- In the afternoon of Sunday, September 19, 2010, tens of thousands of Red Shirts returned to the Ratchaprasong intersection in Bangkok to remember the coup four years previously, and the deliberate murder in April and May this year of around 90 unarmed demonstrators, many of whom were gunned down by army snipers near Ratchaprasong. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1902 Cuba: The drive for efficiency within socialism http://links.org.au/node/1911 By *Helen Yaffe* September 22, 2010 -- The announcement by the Cuban Trade Union Confederation on September 13, 2010, about plans to reduce the state-sector workforce by half a million was greeted by jeering headlines from journalists outside the island. Cuba is rarely of interest to the bourgeois press unless they believe there is some crisis to celebrate or that new measures can be interpreted as evidence of a shift from socialism to capitalism. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1911 (updated Sept. 26) United States: Solidarity needed! FBI raids left activists under guise of `anti-terrorism' http://links.org.au/node/1909 /Against the Current/ -- On September 24, the FBI conducted raided the homes of antiwar and left activists in Minneapolis, Chicago, Michigan and North Carolina. These provocations, under the guise of anti-terrorism, appear to have targeted leaders of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization, which publishes the /Fight Back! /newspaper and website. The articles below are from /Fight Back! News/, /Twin Cities IndyMedia /and /War Times/ * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1909 Venezuela criticises `market totalitarianism' at UN Millennium Development Goal summit http://links.org.au/node/1908 By *Tamara Pearson*, Merida September 22, 2010 -- In Venezuela, social investment has become a national strategy to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, said Jorge Valero, Venezuela's ambassador to the United Nations, in his September 21 speech at the UN summit in New York analysing progress towards reaching the Millennium Development Goals. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1908 Venezuela: Opposition and media lies about lack of democracy exposed http://links.org.au/node/1907 By *Francisco Dominguez* September 23, 2010 -- Venezuelans vote on Sunday, September 26, for the South American country's 165-seat National Assembly -- its national parliament. This is the 16th national election or referenda since Hugo Chávez was first elected president in 1998. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1907 `A force which is truly for good' -- John Coltrane and the jazz revolution http://links.org.au/node/1906 By *Terry Townsend* September 23, 2010 -- John William Coltrane (abbreviated as Trane by his fans) was born on this day in 1926. Since his untimely death on July 17, 1967, saxophone colossus Coltrane has become an icon of African-American pride, achievement and uncompromising determination. He led a revolution in music that mirrored the turbulent growth of black militancy and revolutionary ideas within the urban black community. Today, Trane continues to inspire. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1906 Pakistan: 'Cancel the debt to help flood victims' http://links.org.au/node/1903 September 18, 2010 -- *Ammar Ali Jan* is
[Marxism] `A force which is truly for good' -- John Coltrane and the jazz revolution | Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == September 23, 2010 -- John William Coltrane (abbreviated as Trane by his fans) was born on this day in 1926. Since his untimely death on July 17, 1967, saxophone colossus Coltrane has became an icon of African-American pride, achievement and uncompromising determination. He led a revolution in music that mirrored the turbulent growth of black militancy and revolutionary ideas within the urban black community. Today, Trane continues to inspire. Full article at http://links.org.au/node/1906 * 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 Or join the Links Facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10865397643 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
[Marxism] Thailand: September 19 coup, four years on... bloodbath at Ratchaprasong, four months later
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == By *Giles Ji Ungpakorn* September 19, 2010 -- Over this weekend protests are taking place in many parts of Thailand and in many cities around the world. We are Red Shirts and we shall be remembering those who were killed by the Thai military and those who are in prison. We shall demand democracy and human rights and an end to this brutal dictatorship. The military government of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva hoped that by sending snipers to deliberately kill unarmed civilians [at Ratchaprasong in May this year], they would break the democratic spirit of the Red Shirts. They are mistaken. Their dreams of stability and a long secure future for the conservative elites are built on sand. Full article at http://links.org.au/node/1899 * 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 Or join the Links Facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10865397643 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
[Marxism] `Orientalism' and Cuba: How Western media get it wrong | Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == By *Tim Anderson* September 14, 2010 -- Misunderstandings over Cuba run very deep, and not just among the enemies of socialism, or those who have had little contact with the country. Let's look at some recent misinterpretations. The corporate media has seized on Fidel Castro's comment to US journalist Jeffrey Goldberg of the /Atlantic /magazine that the 'Cuban model' now doesn't work even for us as an admission that Cuban socialism had failed and that Cuba would now have to take on US-style capitalism. Julia Sweig, Goldberg's adviser on Cuba, said she took the comment to be an acknowledgment that ... the state has much too big a role in the economic life of the country. Goldberg excitedly interpreted the comment to mean Cuba is beginning to adopt the sort of economic ideas that America has long-demanded it adopt. Goldberg's article launched thousands of other stories. Full article at http://links.org.au/node/1891 * 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 Or join the Links Facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10865397643 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
[Marxism] Cuba: Exporting revolution, revolutionary models and historical facts | Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == By *Nelson P. Valdés* September 13, 2010 -- Is there a Cuban model of socialism? Apparently the right wing thinks so; the left disagrees. The phrase Cuban model is not a common occurrence in Cuban government servers. What exactly is a model? The /Collins Dictionary of Sociology/ defines model as a simplification of complex reality that avoids complicating factors. As a rule of thumb I would claim that those who know little history (or sociology) tend to grasp for the term model when they are merely generalising because they do not have much more to go on. This vague term leaves readers with no other choice but to reinforce their preconceptions about the Cuban model. A model can also imply something that others ought to follow or copy. Nevertheless, it is possible to discern a number of features that have been fairly consistent and characteristic of the Cuban revolutionary experience. Full article at http://links.org.au/node/1892 * 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 Or join the Links Facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10865397643 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
[Marxism] What's new at Links: Thailand, Bolivia, Raj Patel on Mozambique riots, IMF book excerpt, G20, Swaziland, S. Africa, Pakistan, S11 10th anniv.
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == What's new at Links: Thailand, Bolivia, Raj Patel on Mozambique riots, IMF book excerpt, G20, Swaziland, S. Africa, Pakistan, S11 10th anniv. * * * *For more reliable delivery of new content, please 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 or on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10865397643 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: (video) 10 years ago -- S11 2000 blockade: 'This is what democracy looks like' http://links.org.au/node/1887 September 11, 2010 -- Ten years ago, thousands of Australian activists joined forces to blockade a meeting of the powerful World Economic Forum in Melbourne for three days, beginning September 11, 2000. Despite a massive show of police force and violence, the unity of the protesters prevailed. * Read and watch more http://links.org.au/node/1887 * * * 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 or on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10865397643 Thailand: Red Shirt protests on the rise again http://links.org.au/node/1884 By *Peter Boyle* September 8, 2010 -- Up to 20,000 Red Shirt supporters rallied at a concert in the Thailand seaside resort city of Pattaya on September 4, in what was one the biggest mobilisations since the military bloodily dispersed their mass protest camp in Bangkok on May 19, 2010, killing 91 and injuring thousands more. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1884 (Updated Sept. 8) Raj Patel: Food rebellion -- Mozambicans know which way the wind blows http://links.org.au/node/1878 September 7, 2010 -- /MOZAMBIQUE News reports clippings/ mailing list -- Price rises which triggered the riots last week have been reversed, the government announced September 7 after an emergency cabinet meeting. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1878 Exclusive excerpt from `Debt, the IMF and the World Bank: Sixty questions, sixty answers', by Éric Toussaint and Damien Millet http://links.org.au/node/1888 September 12, 2010 -- /Links International Journal of Socialist Review/, with the permission of Monthly Review Press, is delighted to make available an excerpt from Éric Toussaint and Damien Millet's new book, /Debt, the IMF and the World Bank: Sixty questions, sixty answer./ * Read more and download http://links.org.au/node/1888 Toronto G20 protests: What was gained and what was lost http://links.org.au/node/1886 By* John Riddell* and *Art Young* September 2, 2010 -- Two months after the protests against the G20 summit in Toronto and the accompanying police rampage, it is time for an initial balance sheet of what was gained and lost. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1886 Thailand: How powerful is the Thai military? http://links.org.au/node/1883 By *Giles Ji Ungpakorn* September 6, 2010 -- Despite the fact that millions of Thais believe that the centre of power among the conservative elites today is the monarchy or the Privy Council, the real centre of power, lurking behind the throne, is the military. The military has intervened in politics and society ever since the 1932 revolution against the absolute monarchy. Yet it is also a cliché to just state the number of military coups that have taken place. The power of the military is not unlimited. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1883 Swaziland: Crackdown on eve of protests, PUDEMO leader arrested http://links.org.au/node/1882 [See also Swaziland: Small country, big struggle -- global day of action for democracy http://links.org.au/node/1857.] By *Lucky Lukhele* and *Norm Dixon* September 8, 2010 -- The deputy president of Swaziland's People's
[Marxism] South Africa: Communist youth debate `bourgeoisification of the ANC leadership' l
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == By *Castro Ngobese* September 9, 2010 -- Karl Marx warned that: History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as a farce. Recent attempts to isolate and embarrass the national chairperson of the Young Communist League, David Masondo, after his article in /City Press/ [above] requires critical analysis. Masondo's article -- attacking the manner in which family ties and connections have been utilised to secure lucrative BEE deals for those related to President Jacob Zuma -- offers an honest and refreshing analysis. This and David Masondo's article at http://links.org.au/node/1881 * 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 Or join the Links Facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10865397643 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
[Marxism] Mozambique: Price rises reversed following demonstrations
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Updated: Mozambique: Price rises reversed following demonstrations http://links.org.au/node/1878 (Updated Sept. 8) Raj Patel: Food rebellion -- Mozambicans know which way the wind blows September 7, 2010 -- Price rises which triggered the riots last week have been reversed, the government announced September 7 after an emergency cabinet meeting. Wheat will be subsidised to bring bread prices back to what they were before the demon... 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
[Marxism] What's new at Links: Greens, socialism daydreams, Swaziland, Pakistan floods, cricket, India, S. Korea, terrorism, ecosocialists, Lebowitz, Islamophobia
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == What's new at Links: Greens, socialism daydreams, Swaziland, Pakistan floods, cricket, India, S. Korea, terrorism, ecosocialists, Lebowitz, Islamophobia * * * *For more reliable delivery of new content, please 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 or on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10865397643 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: Interview with new Greens MP Adam Bandt: 'I'll give a voice to the social movements' http://links.org.au/node/1875 *Adam Bandt* interviewed by **Jody Betzien** September 2, 2010 -- /Green Left Weekly/ -- *Adam Bandt*, the Australian Greens' MP elect for the seat of Melbourne (long considered a safe Labor seat), and the Greens' first House of Representatives member to be elected in a general election has been very busy since the August 21 election. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1875 Socialism and the right to daydream http://links.org.au/node/1873 By *Billy Wharton* August 31, 2010 -- A recent study featured in the /Los Angeles Times/ suggests that daydreaming or other such unstructured mental activities might play a key role in mental well being. Unknowingly, this study promotes a prime potential of a democratic socialist society -- the right to free time. While capitalism, especially in its current neoliberal incarnation, stresses never-ending productivity, a human-centred socialist system would allow for more free time. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1873 Swaziland: Small country, big struggle -- global day of action for democracy http://links.org.au/node/1857 The Swaziland Democracy Campaign (SDC), formed by trade unions, political parties, civil society groups and churches, has called for a global day of action on September 7, 2010. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1857 Mike Marqusee: Behind cricket's latest scandal -- Pakistan cricket and its discontents http://links.org.au/node/1876 By *Mike Marqusee* September 3, 2010 -- On top of floods, war, bombs, a corrupt and incompetent government with a much feared military in the wings, the long-suffering people of Pakistan have now been betrayed, once again, by their cricketers. Most will not be shocked or will profess not to be shocked. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1876 India: Important step towards left realignment and unity http://links.org.au/node/1874 By *Dipankar Bhattacharya*, CPI (ML) Liberation general secretary September 2010 -- Four fighting organisations of the left -- the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation [CPI (ML) Liberation], the Communist Party Marxist (Punjab) [CPM (Punjab)], Lal Nishan Party (Leninist) [LNP (L)] of Maharashtra and the Left Coordination Committee (Kerala) [LCC] -- formed the All India Left Coordination (AILC) at a joint convention held in New Delhi on August 11, 2010. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1874 Pakistan: As floods move south, calls for debt cancellation grow http://links.org.au/node/1872 *[**Readers can donate to help flood victims **through the Labour Relief Campaign **via the Australian trade unions' aid agency APHEDA at http://www.apheda.org.au/news/1281331224_14992.html.] * September 2, 2010 -- In Pakistan, torrential rains a month ago that triggered unprecedented floods have moved steadily from north to south, engulfing a fifth of the country. Seventeen million people have been affected, and some five million have lost their homes. Meanwhile, a movement to cancel Pakistan's external debt is now underway as campaigners plan a protest in front of Pakistan's parliament house today to call on international institutions like the IMF to cancel the country's debt. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1872 South Korea: The story of ROKS Cheonan -- repression, lies and half truths http://links.org.au/node/1871 By *Roddy Quines* September 1, 2010 -- It has often been said that the first casualty when war comes is truth. The latest string of lies and half truths on the Korean peninsula have set the stage for the reheating of old tensions between North Korea and South Korea. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1871 Why Marxists oppose terrorism http://links.org.au/node/1870 By *Dave Holmes* I'd like to begin with a juxtaposition of two events --- one which took place relatively recently
[Marxism] Raj Patel: Food rebellion -- Mozambicans know which way the wind blows | Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == By *Raj Patel * September 4, 2010 -- It has been a summer of record temperatures – Japan had its hottest summer on record.[1] Same with south Florida and New York.[2] Meanwhile, Pakistan and Niger are flooded, and the eastern US is mopping up after Hurricane Earl. None of these individual events can definitively be attributed to global warming, as any climatologist will tell you. But to see how climate change will play out in the 21st century, you needn’t look to the Met Office. Look instead to the deaths and burning tyres in Mozambique’s early September food riots to see what happens when extreme natural phenomena interact with our unjust social and economic systems. The immediate causes of the protests and in Mozambique’s capital, Maputo, and Chimoio about 500 miles north, are a 30% price increase for bread, compounding a recent double-digit increase for water and energy.[3] When nearly three-quarters of the household budget is spent on food, that’s a hike few Mozambicans can afford. So far, the death toll hovers around 10, including two children. The police claim that they had to use live ammunition against protesters because they ran out of rubber bullets. Full article at http://links.org.au/node/1878 * 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 Or join the Links Facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10865397643 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
[Marxism] South Africa: Strike ends, workers' anger remains | Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On September 6, the major trade unions representing South Africa's 1.3 million public servants and teachers announced that the 20-day strike for higher wages and allowances had been suspended. See union statements below. Union leaders said the move would allow members to consider the latest government offer. Public servants went on strike demanding an 8.6% pay rise, while the government has offered 7.5%. According to the BBC, workers who came to hear union officials shouted in protest when they announced that the strike was being suspended. Meanwhile, workers in many other industries are taking or threatening industrial action. Full article at http://links.org.au/node/1880 * 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 Or join the Links Facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10865397643 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
[Marxism] What's new at Links: Australia, utopia, Swaziland, S. Africa strike, Pakistan floods, Philippines, sport, Gramsci, DSP, NT indigenous struggle, Venezuela food
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == What's new at Links: Australia, utopia, Swaziland, S. Africa strike, Pakistan floods, Philippines, sport, Gramsci, DSP, NT indigenous struggle, Venezuela food * * * *For more reliable delivery of new content, please 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 or on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10865397643 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: Swing to Greens a shift to left as neither major capitalist party wins a mandate http://links.org.au/node/1854 By *Peter Boyle * August 24, 2010 -- By denying both the ruling Australian Labor Party (ALP) and the opposition Liberal Party-National Party coalition an outright majority, in primary votes and in federal House of Representatives (lower house) and Senate (upper house), Australian electors on August 21 voted neither of the above for the traditional parties of government. The result after election night was a hung parliament, with several rural independent MPs and one Greens MP to decide which party will form the next government. This followed an election campaign in which the major parties conducted an ugly race to the right, most notoriously by scapegoating the few thousand desperate refugees who attempt to get to Australia on boats. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1854 Rehabilitating utopia and saving the future http://links.org.au/node/1864 By *Ben Courtice* August 29, 2010 -- Socialism was conceived as a creative and idealistic movement, but lost its way for most of the 20th century. Recapturing this imaginative energy can help find solutions to such huge threats as climate change. This article started as a short impromptu speech I gave to launch the third edition of the Australian Socialist Alliance's /Climate Charter http://www.socialist-alliance.org/page.php?page=674%22%3E/. Socialism used to be a rallying point for idealists, utopians, dreamers and those who were simply hopeful. It carried an almost millenarian promise of redemption and salvation. More importantly, it allowed its advocates to exercise their imagination. If socialism was to democratically realise the wishes of the common working people, why should they be restrained in their wishes? * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1864 Swaziland: Small country, big struggle -- global day of action for democracy http://links.org.au/node/1857 [The Swaziland Democracy Campaign (SDC), formed by trade unions, political parties, civil society groups and churches, has called for a global day of action on September 7, 2010. It will include a mass protest and show of defiance in Swaziland.] By *Mike Marqusee* August 23, 2010 -- Swaziland is a small country with a big problem. The 1.3 million inhabitants of the land-locked southern African kingdom live under the thumb of one of the world's last absolute monarchies, a venal and repressive regime whose plunder of the country is systematic and comprehensive. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1857 Pakistan: The flood disaster and the way out http://links.org.au/node/1853 By the *Labour Party Pakistan* (Karachi) and the *National Trade Union Federation* August 20, 2010 -- The recent floods represent the worst disaster in Pakistan's history. The country has been devastated from the northern areas to its southern tip. The state, stripped of its capacity to meet peoples' needs by neoliberalism and militarism alike, has been found wanting---both in its longstanding failure to maintain existing infrastructure, and in its response to the calamity. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1853 South Africa: COSATU calls `total shutdown', condemns state `scabbing', violence http://links.org.au/node/1858 August 26, 2010 -- Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi on August 24 announced that its affiliated unions will launch a solidarity secondary strike on September 2 in support of the country's 1.3 million public servants and teachers, who are on strike for better wages and allowances. All COSATU unions, in both the public and private sectors, will embark on a sympathy strike. No member of COSATU will be at work next week, Vavi warned. According to the August 25 Johannesburg /Times/, Vavi told a press conference following a COSATU executive meeting (see statement below) that the African National Congress
[Marxism] South Africa: COSATU calls `total shutdown', condemns state `scabbing', violence | Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == August 26, 2010 -- Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi on August 24 announced that its affiliated unions will launch a solidarity secondary strike on September 2 in support of the country's 1.3 million public servants and teachers, who are on strike for better wages and allowances. All COSATU unions, in both the public and private sectors, will embark on a sympathy strike. No member of COSATU will be at work next week, Vavi warned. Full article and COSATU statement at http://links.org.au/node/1858 * 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 Or join the Links Facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10865397643 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
[Marxism] What's new at Links: S. Africa strike, Green Party, Ruth First, Afghanistan, James P. Cannon, Britain, Pakistan flood, Haiti, Bolivia, Africa looted
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == What's new at Links: S. Africa strike, Green Party, Ruth First, Afghanistan, James P. Cannon, Britain, Pakistan flood, Haiti, Bolivia, Africa looted * * * *For more reliable delivery of new content, please 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 or on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10865397643 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. South Africa: Public sector strike highlights post-apartheid's contradictions http://links.org.au/node/1852 By *Patrick Bond* August 22, 2010 -- The two major civil service unions on strike against the South African government have vowed to intensify pressure in coming days, in a struggle pitting more than a million members of the middle and lower ranks of society against a confident government leadership fresh from hosting the World Cup. Along with many smaller public sector unions, educators from the South African Democratic Teachers Union (SADTU) and nurses from the National Health and Allied Workers Union (NEHAWU) continued picketing schools, clinics and hospitals, leading to widespread shutdowns starting on August 18. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1852 Britain: What now for the Green Party? http://links.org.au/node/1850 By *Peter Shield* August 17, 2010 -- The Green Party of England and Wales has made some major breakthroughs over the couple of years, the election of Caroline Lucas to the British parliament was one of the few bright points on an otherwise dismal election night on May 6, 2010. At a local level the Green Party now has just over 120 councillors and the two members of the European Parliament (MEPs). The problem however is that the election showed up how patchy and locally concentrated its support base actually is. With the Autumn party conference approaching what are challenges facing the Green Party. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1850 South Africa: COSATU's Zwelinzima Vavi's Ruth First Memorial Lecture http://links.org.au/node/1851 *Zwelinzima Vavi* presented the 2010 Ruth First Memorial Lecture, Wits University, Johannesburg, August 17, 2010. Vavi is secretary general of the Congress of South African Trade Unions. *Ruth First* (May 4, 1925--August 17, 1982) was a South African anti-apartheid activist and communist born in Johannesburg, South Africa. She was killed by the apartheid regime with a parcel bomb in Mozambique in 1982, where she worked in exile from South Africa. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1851 Afghans mark Independence Day with anti-occupation protests http://links.org.au/node/1849 By *Derrick O'Keefe* August 19, 2010 marks 91 years since Afghanistan gained its freedom from the British empire, following three bloody wars of independence. US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton has issued a video statement to mark the occasion. It's worth watching or reading the text in full, if only to appreciate the new empire's irony-laden platitudes. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1849 James P. Cannon: An introduction http://links.org.au/node/1848 By *Dave Holmes* James P. Cannon was a pioneer of the Communist Party of the United States and one of its central leaders in the 1920s. Breaking with the Stalinised CP in 1928 he founded the US Trotskyist movement and played the decisive role in building it for over three decades. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1848 Britain: Build opposition to the `slash and burn' coalition http://links.org.au/node/1847 By *Alan Thornett* August 18, 2010 -- Britain's first coalition government since the war has completed its first parliamentary session. Coalition, however, is something of a sick misnomer. What we have is a right-wing Thatcherite, small-state, slash-and-burn Tory government, propped up by the cringing Liberal Democrats (Lib Dems), with a cuts and privatisation agenda which goes well beyond anything Thatcher herself was able to envisage. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1847 Pakistan flood catastrophe: West gives `billions for killing, little for life' http://links.org.au/node/1846 By *John Passant* August 15, 2010 -- The floods in Pakistan have threatened the lives and safety of more than 20 million people. Millions have lost everything. Now hunger and disease haunt the country. Dysentery and cholera are gaining a foothold as people without homes starve and kids
Re: [Marxism] More on Cannonism
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == The links to John Percy's Looking backward, looking forward: Pointers to building a revolutionary party is now http://links.org.au/node/64 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
[Marxism] Australia: ‘Greenslide’ a shift to left — neither major party wins majority mandate | Green Left Weekly
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/45183 Tuesday, August 24, 2010 By Peter Boyle http://www.greenleft.org.au/taxonomy/term/1073 Rally for equal marriage rights, Sydney August 14, 2010. Photo by Peter Boyle. By denying both the Australian Labor Party (ALP) and the the Liberal-National coalition an outright majority in primary votes and in House of Representatives seats, Australian electors voted “neither of the above” for the traditional parties of government. This followed an election campaign in which the major parties conducted an ugly race to the right, most notoriously by scapegoating the few thousand desperate refugees who attempt to get to Australia on boats. The effect of this race to the right was to promote racism, further breakdown community solidarity, and a bolster a range of other conservative prejudices on issues ranging from climate change to the economy to same-sex marriage rights. Important issues like Indigenous rights and Australia's participation in the imperialist war of occupation in Afghanistan were totally screened out. However, there was also a reaction to this push to the right. The Greens, a party with a record of taking positions well left of the major parties on many critical issues enjoyed a 3.8% swing, taking most of its votes away from the ALP. At the time of writing, the Greens had obtained 1,187,881 (11.4%) of the first preference votes for House of Representatives. Yet under the undemocratic system for lower house elections, the Greens only got one of the 150 seats in the House of Representatives, that of Melbourne. There were a string of other once-safe ALP seats that came close to being taken by the Greens. The contradiction between the size of the Green vote and their small representation in Parliament grows, suggests the need for a grassroots campaign for democratic reform of the electoral system. It is not democratic that the Nationals, who won a third the number of votes as the Greens, should get seven times their representation in parliament! The power of corporate Australia to buy elections with massive donations and their domination of the media also has to be confronted. The Greens won the seat of Melbourne with the open assistance of the Victorian Electrical Trade Union and many other militant trade unionists. This was an important break from the total domination of the labour movement by the pro-capitalist ALP. At the time of writing, the Greens had won 1,266,521 first preference votes in the Senate election and socialist candidates, including the Socialist Alliance, a further 39,186 votes. The Greens look like raising their number of Senators from five to nine — giving them the balance of power in the Senate. The progressive social movements, including the trade unions will be looking to these Greens Senators to offer strong support in the struggles ahead, no matter which major party eventually forms government. The result after election night on August 21 was a hung parliament. The major parties are now desperately trying to negotiate agreements with three or four independents and the Greens MP to form a minority government, while the outcome in a number of seats remains uncertain. If a deal to form government cannot be made, the Governor-General has the power to call another election. While the three independent MPs certain of a seat, Tony Windsor, Bob Katter and Rob Oakeshott, are former members of the conservative rural-based National Party, all broke over strong objections to particular aspects of the neoliberal agenda that has been pursued by both Liberal-National coalition and ALP governments since the 1980s. Further, they have consolidated the hold on their seats by taking “community-first” positions on issues directly affecting their electorates. So neither major party can be certain of their support. Newly elected Greens MP for Melbourne, Adam Bandt, indicated earlier in the campaign that he would support a hypothetical ALP minority government but since August 21, he's been reluctant to be so specific. He told ABC TV's /7.30 Report/ on August 22 that the Greens were entering discussions with various parties and independents and “there's nothing on or off the table”. Progressive independent Andrew Wilkie, a former Greens candidate, has a chance of winning the Tasmanian seat of Denison away from the ALP. He laid out a position, on the August 22 /7.30 Report/ on how he would be prepared to support a minority government: “If I'm elected, the party I support will only be assured that I won't block supply, and that I won't support any reckless no confidence motion. “Beyond that, it's all up for grabs. I will look at every piece of legislation, every issue and assess them on
[Marxism] South Africa: Public sector strike h ighlights post-apartheid’s contradictions | Links In ternational Journal of Socialist Renewal
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == By *Patrick Bond* August 22, 2010 -- The two major civil service unions on strike against the South African government have vowed to intensify pressure in coming days, in a struggle pitting more than a million members of the middle and lower ranks of society against a confident government leadership fresh from hosting the World Cup. Along with many smaller public sector unions, educators from the South African Democratic Teachers Union (SADTU) and nurses from the National Health and Allied Workers Union (NEHAWU) continued picketing schools, clinics and hospitals, leading to widespread shutdowns starting on August 18. Skeleton teams of doctors and military personnel were compelled to send non-emergency cases home. In several confrontations with police at town centres, clinics and schools late last week, workers were shot with rubber bullets and water cannon. On August 21, the courts enjoined workers to return to jobs considered “emergency services”. In dozens of hospitals and clinics, military health workers took over. South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma threatened mass sackings and attacked labour movement activists who successfully disrupted health and education facilities: “Even during the campaigns against the apartheid government we did not prevent nurses from going to work”, the leader of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) stated. The South African Communist Party (SACP) issued a statement defending the strikers but requested the labour movement and ANC desist from “flinging irritable insults at each other, while the private sector and anti-worker elements sit back and laugh”. Full article at http://links.org.au/node/1852 * 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 Or join the Links Facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10865397643 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
[Marxism] What's new at Links: Pakistan floods, Australian socialists, Karl Polanyi, Sri Lanka, Arabic, Thailand, Philippines, Bolivia climate talks, Grundrisse, Zimbabwe
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == What's new at Links: Pakistan floods, Australian socialists, Karl Polanyi, Sri Lanka, Arabic, Thailand, Philippines, Bolivia climate talks, Grundrisse, Zimbabwe * * * *For more reliable delivery of new content, please 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 or on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10865397643 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/. * * * Pakistan: Labour Relief Campaign launches appeal for millions affected by floods http://links.org.au/node/1832 *[**Readers can also donate via the Australian trade unions' aid agency APHEDA at http://www.apheda.org.au/news/1281331224_14992.html.] * Appeal from the *Labour Relief Campaign*, Pakistan August 7, 2010 -- More than 12 million people are suffering from floods in Pakistan. Please donate to the Labour Relief Campaign to help people of Pakistan facing the worst-ever floods in its history. Torrential rains have unleashed flash floods in different parts of the country in the last three weeks. Levies have broken, leaving the people exposed to flood water. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1832 Australian socialists: `Vote Socialist Greens, put Abbott's conservatives last http://links.org.au/node/1830 On July 24, 2010, Australia's leading socialist newspaper /Green Left Weekly/ spoke to */Peter Boyle/*, national convener of the Socialist Alliance, about the political climate of the 2010 federal election, to be held on August 21. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1830 Karl Polanyi provides `a vital intellectual resource' for ecosocialists http://links.org.au/node/1842 By *Derek Wall* The market is still seen as a solution to all ills and the failure of socialists to make a persuasive case for alternatives to marketisation has created huge problems for the left. In just about every part of world outside Latin America, the left remain in a weak position and alternatives to neoliberalism remain marginal, so intellectual resources that show that the market is neither an inevitable nor an effecient means of running the economy are vital. One of the most important resources in the ideological struggle for a socialist economy that sustains the environment, promotes social justice and creates democratic control of the means of production, is the work of the late great Hungarian thinker Karl Polanyi. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1842 Sri Lankan government's ties with Israel expose its duplicity http://links.org.au/node/1841 By *Chris Slee* August 14, 2010 -- On July 21 the Israeli newspaper /Yedioth Ahronoth/ published an interview with Donald Perera, Sri Lanka's ambassador to Israel. Perera thanked Israel profusely for its support in the fight against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), saying: For years Israel has aided our war on terror through the exchange of information and the sale of military technology and equipment... Our air force fleet includes 17 Kfir warplanes, and we also have Dabur patrol boats. Our pilots were trained in Israel, and we have received billions of dollars in aid over the past few years. This is why I asked to be assigned to Israel -- a country I consider a partner in the war against terror. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1841 Pakistan: Use foreign debt repayments for flood-hit communities http://links.org.au/node/1840 By the *Labour Relief Campaign* August 13, 2010 -- Pakistan must refuse to pay foreign debt and divert the amount to the relief and rehabilitation of flood-hit communities. Instead of begging for much-needed aid for relief and rehabilitation, Pakistan must stand up and announce the unilateral suspension of repayment of foreign debts, owed to international finance institutions (IFIs) and donor countries. Currently Pakistan is paying about US$3 billion on debt servicing every year. Pakistan's present foreign debt of $54 billion is increasing. This act alone can bring most of the much-need support for the immediate relief of the flood victims. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1840 The Flame, August 2010 -- Green Left Weekly's Arabic-language supplement http://links.org.au/node/1838 August 6, 2010 -- With the help of Socialist Alliance members in the growing Sudanese community in Australia, /Green Left Weekly/ -- Australia's leading socialist newspaper -- publishes a regular
[Marxism] Pamphlet to download: Marta Harnecker's `Ideas for the Struggle'
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == This 12-part series of articles by *Marta Harnecker* (translated by *Federico Fuentes*) on ideas for how to organise for socialism in the 21st century first appeared in /Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal/. It is now available download free as a pamphlet in PDF format. Marta Harnecker is originally from Chile where she participated in the revolutionary process of 1970-1973. She has written extensively on the Cuba Revolution, and on the nature of socialist democracy. She now lives in Caracas and is a participant in the Venezuelan revolution. Download at http://links.org.au/node/1374 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
[Marxism] What's new at Links: Australia, Asian solidarity with Venezuela, Hiroshima, BDS left, iPhone, S.Africa, Venezuela, COSATU on SACP, Comintern, Malaysia, S.Korea, water
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == What's new at Links: Australia, Asian solidarity with Venezuela, Hiroshima, BDS left, iPhone, S.Africa, Venezuela, COSATU on SACP, Comintern, Malaysia, S.Korea, water * * * *For more reliable delivery of new content, please 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 or on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10865397643 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. * * * Australian socialists: `Vote Socialist Greens, put Abbott's conservatives last' http://links.org.au/node/1830 On July 24, 2010, Australia's leading socialist newspaper /Green Left Weekly/ spoke to */Peter Boyle/*, national convener of the Socialist Alliance, about the political climate of the 2010 federal election, to be held on August 21. *Many progressive people are feeling depressed about the federal election. How do you see it?* The Australian Labor Party and the conservative Liberal Party-National Party Coalition are in a race to the bottom, as Socialist Alliance lead Queensland Senate candidate and Murri [Indigenous] community leader Sam Watson aptly put it. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1830 Asian socialists: `Stop the threats against Venezuela now!' http://links.org.au/node/1817 Joint statement initiated by *Socialist Party of Malaysia* (PSM), *Working People's Association* (PRP), Indonesia, and *Socialist Alliance,* Australia. See below for latest signatures. [If your organisation would like to sign this statement, please email int@gmail.com mailto:int@gmail.com.] August 1, 2010 -- We, the undersigned organisations, view with serious concern the possibility of military aggression towards the people of Venezuela by the Colombian government, which could be supported by the United State of America using its seven military bases recently installed in Colombia. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1817 Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Worst single terror attacks in history http://links.org.au/node/1186 / /By *Norm Dixon* August 6 and August 9 mark the anniversaries of the US atomic-bomb attacks on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. In Hiroshima, an estimated 80,000 people were killed in a split second. Some 13 square kilometres of the city were obliterated. By December, at least another 70,000 people had died from radiation and injuries. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1186 Why the left should support the boycott of Israel -- a reply to the US Socialist Workers Party http://links.org.au/node/1829 By* Art Young *August 6, 2010 -- When Israeli commandos attacked the Gaza Freedom Flotilla in international waters on May 31, 2010, murdered nine humanitarian aid workers and seized the cargo of badly needed supplies for Gaza, they touched off an international storm of outrage that continues to this day. The widespread anger has galvanised the international movement in solidarity with the Palestinian people, drawing in new forces and producing new initiatives. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1829 iPhone 4: Capitalism, inbuilt obsolescence and `blood' phones http://links.org.au/node/1828 By *Stuart Munckton* August 1, 2010 -- Yes, the notable features with iPhone 4 --- both the device and the iOS4 --- are mostly tweaks, said a June 22 review on the popular site BoingBoing.net. But what tweaks they are. My eye was caught by the admission that the iPhone 4, launched in Australia on July 29, was almost the same as the iPhone 3. Corporations use inbuilt obsolescence as part of artificially creating markets. This means the products they sell are deliberately made to break down --- so we have to keep buying more. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1828 South Africa loses its 'War on Poverty' http://links.org.au/node/1826 By *Patrick Bond, *Durban August 6, 2010 -- Shortly before Pretoria's presidential power change from Thabo Mbeki to Jacob Zuma two years ago, the South African state announced its War on Poverty. What news from the front, in the immediate wake of World Cup host duties that showed observers how very pleasant life is for the rich and middle class here? * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1826 Venezuela: Defend and deepen the Bolivarian Revolution with an armed and mobilised people http://links.org.au/node/1824 By *Marea Socialista* July 28, 2010 -- Following the provocations of the
[Marxism] John Riddell: (Audio) The Comintern, 1919-1923: The two souls of centralism | Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == A talk presented by John Riddell to International Socialist Organization's (USA) Marxism 2010 conference in Chicago. The talk was originally posted at Wearemany.org. John Riddell is co-editor of /Socialist Voice/ (Canada) and editor of /The Communist International in Lenin’s Time/, a six-volume anthology of documents, speeches, manifestos and commentary. Listen at http://links.org.au/node/1822 * 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 Or join the Links Facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10865397643 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
[Marxism] What's new at Links: Population debate, Venezuela threats solidarity, Leonard Peltier, `de-growth'?, food, banning the veil, carbon price, rate of profit, Ecuador
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == What's new at Links: Population debate, Venezuela threatened solidarity, Leonard Peltier, `de-growth'?, food, banning the veil, carbon price, rate of profit, Ecuador * * * *For more reliable delivery of new content, please 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 or on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10865397643 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: `Sustainable population?' -- Scapegoating migrants and refugees for the capitalist system's ills http://links.org.au/node/1807 By *Graham Matthews* July 24, 2010 -- In one of her first policy changes after replacing Kevin Rudd as leader of the Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister Julia Gillard dumped Rudd's idea of a big Australia. On June 26, Gillard said Australia should not hurtle down the track towards a big population. Instead, she called for a sustainable population. Almost four weeks on, however, Labor's policy has no details --- just lots of rhetoric designed to pander to fears that immigration (particularly asylum seekers) is causing a raft of social problems. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1807 Colombia United States threaten attack -- Stop the lies and aggression against Venezuela! http://links.org.au/node/1805 A statement from the *Australia-Venezuela Solidarity Network* July 24, 2010 -- On July 22, Venezuela broke off all diplomatic relations with Colombia and placed its national borders on high alert. This follows accusations made by the Colombian government that Venezuela is harbouring terrorists from the Armed Revolutionary Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN), and hosting several terrorist training camps near the border region that divides the two countries. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1805 United States: The railroading of Leonard Peltier http://links.org.au/node/1806 / /By *Mike Ely* Join in demanding freedom for Leonard Peltier, so that at long last simple justice be done for him and the Indigenous peoples of North America.Petitions are also being circulated urging clemency and urging US Congress to investigate FBI misconduct on Pine Ridge and the reign of terror that existed between 1973 and 1976. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1806 Venezuela's process of struggle http://links.org.au/node/1804 *Jason Netek* looks at the political situation in Venezuela -- and why international solidarity is key to furthering the process of workers' power. July 22, 2010 -- /Socialist Worker/ (USA) -- The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela is the focal point of a political shift to the left that has affected most of the Latin American continent for just over a decade. For years now, we have heard denunciations of the nation and its president, Hugo Chávez, from TV personalities like Glenn Beck and Pat Robertson to establishment figures like George W. Bush and Barack Obama, all of whom liken the nation to a military dictatorship. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1804 Is `de-growth' compatible with capitalism? http://links.org.au/node/1803 / /By *Alejandro Nadal* July 15, 2010 -- A serious campaign in favour of de-growth has been going on for some time and has made important contributions. This movement has opened new avenues for debate and analysis on technology, credit, education and other important areas. It's an effort that needs support and attention, and we must applaud their initiators and promoters for their boldness and dedication. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1803 False food choices under capitalism http://links.org.au/node/1802 Below is the editorial of the /Socialist WebZine/, online magazine of the *Socialist Party of the United States*. Following that is an article by *Dan La Botz*, SPUSA's Ohio candidate forthe US Senate. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1802 Banning the veil: Rights of women or anti-Islamic racism and communalism? http://links.org.au/node/1801 July 21, 2010 -- On July 13, the parliament of France, on the eve of Bastille Day, voted 335 to one in favour of preventing Muslim women wearing a full face-covering veil in public. The July 13 /Le Monde/ said the new law was strongly supported by the right. The Socialist Party, Communist Party (PCF) and Green Party abstained. Anyone who chooses to wear a face covering on religious
[Marxism] Banning the veil: Rights of women or anti-Islamic racism? | Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == July 21, 2010 -- On July 13, the parliament of France, on the eve of Bastille Day, voted 335 to one in favour of preventing Muslim women wearing a full face-covering veil in public. The July 13 /Le Monde/ said the new law was strongly supported by the right. The Socialist Party, Communist Party (PCF) and Green Party abstained. Anyone who chooses to wear a face covering on religious grounds now faces a fine of 150 euros or a “citizenship course”. The law does not come into effect until spring 2011 to allow a period of “education”. There is also a year in prison and a fine of 30,000 euros for anyone found guilty of forcing a woman to wear a veil, a penalty which is doubled if the “victim is a minor”. Earlier this year, the Indian organisation Radical Socialist issued a statement taking up this wave of Islamophobic legislation in Europe. Full article at http://links.org.au/node/1801 * 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 Or join the Links Facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10865397643 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
[Marxism] What's new at Links: Climate charter, John Bellamy Foster, Venezuela, Ecuador, rate of profit, Pakistan, Thailand, Catalonia, Brazil
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == What's new at Links: Climate charter, John Bellamy Foster, Venezuela, Ecuador, rate of profit, Pakistan, Thailand, Catalonia, Brazil * * * *For more reliable delivery of new content, please 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 or on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10865397643 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. * * * Climate action now! Socialist Alliance releases latest Climate Change Charter http://links.org.au/node/1797 / /By the *Socialist Alliance* (Australia) July 2010 -- For years, climate scientists have warned us that we need to act on climate change. Now, science is saying that climate change is taking place more rapidly than everyone previously thought. The warning signs are obvious. April and May were the world's hottest months since records began. This year's Arctic ice sheet melt is taking place at a pace never seen before. Scientists say carbon pollution has made the world's oceans more acidic than they have been for at least 20 million years. There is already too much carbon in the atmosphere. The warming already in the system risks the crossing of various natural tipping points that would raise temperatures further and faster. If these points are crossed, it would bring average temperatures to levels that have not existed for millions of years, and to which today's nature is simply not adapted. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1797 John Bellamy Foster on Venezuela: Marxism and `vernacular revolutionary traditions' http://links.org.au/node/1788 The following article is the Foreward to the July-August 2010 issue of the US socialist magazine /Monthly Review/, which features Marta Harnecker's Latin America and Twenty-First Century Socialism: Inventing to Avoid Mistakes. Bellamy Foster will be a feature speaker at the Climate Change Social Change conference, to be held in Melbourne, November 5-7, 2010 http://links.org.au/node/1775. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1788 John Bellamy Foster to attend Climate Change Social Change conference, Melbourne, November 5-7, 2010 http://links.org.au/node/1775 / /July 7, 2010 -- Humanity is in a race against time to avoid environmental and social catastrophe caused by climate change. The Climate Change Social Change conference is being organised to contribute towards understanding and collective action, in Australia and internationally, to address the climate emergency. Register now! * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1775 The debate on the rate of profit http://links.org.au/node/1799 By *Michel Husson* July 2010 -- A polemic on the rate of profit has developed over the last few months. This article seeks to review this debate which turns around four essential questions. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1799 Ecuador: Indigenous struggle, ecology and capitalist resource extraction http://links.org.au/node/1798 / / *Marlon Santi* interviewed by *Jeffery R. Webber* July 13, 2010 --/ /On July 5, I sat down with Marlon Santi, president of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE), in his office in Quito. We discussed the increasing contradictions between the demands of the Indigenous people's movement, on the one hand, around water rights and anti-mining resistance, and the positions of the government of Rafael Correa, on the other, which has labelled Indigenous resistance to large-scale mining and oil exploitation as terrorism and sabotage. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1798 Pakistan: Losing lives to form trade unions http://links.org.au/node/1796 By *Farooq Tariq* July 16, 2010 -- On July 6, while Mustansar Rindhawa was listening to a worker who had not been paid his wages by a textile boss, an unknown person with a Kalashnikov rifle entered the front room and fired. Mustansar tried to save his life by running to the next room. I met Mustansar Rindhawa (32) briefly on June 19, 2010, in Faisalabad, less than a month before his murder. He was one of 30 participants in a trade union leadership training course at the Labour Qaumi Movement (LQM) office. The LQM is a community-based labour organisation established in 2004. It has become the main labour organisation in Faisalabad, and is now spreading to other cities. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1796 Venezuela: Communal power in Caracas
[Marxism] What's new at Links: John Bellamy Foster, Venezuela, World Cup, Australia refugees, S. Africa, Fred Wright cartoon, Mozambique, Sheppard on Camejo, David Harvey
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == What's new at Links: John Bellamy Foster, Venezuela, World Cup, Australia refugees, S. Africa, Fred Wright cartoon, Mozambique, Sheppard on Camejo, David Harvey, Arabic * * * *For more reliable delivery of new content, please 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 or on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10865397643 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. * * * John Bellamy Foster on Venezuela: Marxism and `vernacular revolutionary traditions' http://links.org.au/node/1788 The following article is the Foreward to the July-August 2010 issue of the US socialist magazine /Monthly Review/, which features Marta Harnecker's Latin America and Twenty-First Century Socialism: Inventing to Avoid Mistakes. Bellamy Foster will be a feature speaker at the Climate Change Social Change conference, to be held in Melbourne, November 5-7, 2010. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1788 Timor Leste and Australian activists reject Australian government's racist refugee policy http://links.org.au/node/1782 Statement by *Luta Hamutuk, Timor-Leste Institute for Research, Advocacy and Campaigns* Dili, July 7, 2010 -- According to Australian foreign affairs policy announced by the Australian prime minister in Sydney recently and published by a range of media, including the Indonesian newspaper the /Java Post/, Prime Minister (PM) Julia Gillard has tightened Australia immigration law. Not wanting to be bothered by the economic and social problems caused by asylum seekers, the Australian leader plans to build a detention center for asylum seekers in Timor-Leste As quoted by Associated Press (/Java Post/, 07/07/2010). The above statement shows how Australian foreign policy contains racist characteristics toward Timor Leste and the region. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1782 John Bellamy Foster to attend Climate Change Social Change conference, Melbourne, November 5-7, 2010 http://links.org.au/node/1775 / /July 7, 2010 -- Humanity is in a race against time to avoid environmental and social catastrophe caused by climate change. When we look at government half-measures like the carbon trading and disastrous international conferences like Copenhagen, we seem to be losing the race. But when we look at the rising people's movement demanding serious action on climate, there's reason for hope and inspiration. The Climate Change Social Change conference is being organised to contribute towards understanding and collective action, in Australia and internationally, to address the climate emergency. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1775 South African soccer: For the love of the game or of money and power? http://links.org.au/node/1786 By *Dale T. McKinley*, Johannesburg July 7, 2010 -- The sun has almost set on the soccer World Cup and its seeming suspension of our South African normalcy. No doubt, many will try their best to continue to bask in its positively proclaimed developmental legacy; but, as sure as the sun will rise on the morning after, so too will the reality of that normalcy bite us like an unhappy dog. Nowhere will this be more apparent than in the world of South African soccer itself. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1786 Classic cartoon by Fred Wright: `How much do you pay your boss?' http://links.org.au/node/1785 Fred Wright (1907-1984) was one of the United States's most renowned labour movement cartoonists. His career lasted from 1939 until his death in 1984. He is best known for his work as a staff cartoonist for the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE). In addition to his cartoons illustrating the union's newspaper, the /UE News/, he designed leaflets, strike placards and animated organising cartoons to contribute to the US labour movement. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1785 Mozambique's `recolonisation' http://links.org.au/node/1784 [The following article first appeared in AfricaFile's //At Issue Ezine/, /vol. 12 (May-October 2010), edited by *John S. Saul*, which examines the development of the southern African liberation movement-led countries. It has been posted at /Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal/ with permission.] * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1784 Barry Sheppard reviews Peter Camejo's `North Star -- A Memoir'
[Marxism] South Africa: FIFA forbids free speech at World Cup | Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == By *Patrick Bond* July 7, 2010 -- Acting against our alleged ambush marketing and incitement (sic), the South African Police Service, newly augmented with 40,000 additional cadre for the World Cup, detained several of us here in Durban last weekend. We were simply exercising freedom of expression at our favourite local venue, the South Beach Fan Fest, whose half-million visitors is a record. Wearing hidden microphones so as to tape discussions with police leadership, what we learned was chilling, for they have received orders from Durban city manager Mike Sutcliffe that the property rights of the world soccer body, the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), overrule our foundational constitutional rights. “We can charge you and detain you until the 11th of July, [when] FIFA is over!”, a top officer shouted at me during my second interrogation, on Saturday, July 3. Full article at http://links.org.au/node/1779 * 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 Or join the Links Facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10865397643 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
[Marxism] For independent Congo's 50th anniversary: exclusive book excerpt
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == For independent Congo's 50th anniversary: Patrice Lumumba `will live forever’ -- exclusive book excerpt Download at http://links.org.au/node/624 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
[Marxism] What's new at Links: BDS against Israel, World Cup S. Africa, Thailand appeal, Venezuela, Chavez interview, Marxism religion, Cuban contras, Philippines
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == What's new at Links: BDS against Israel, World Cup S. Africa, Thailand appeal, Venezuela, Chavez interview, Marxism religion, Cuban contras, Philippines * * * *For more reliable delivery of new content, please 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 or on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10865397643 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. * * * Appeal against repression in Thailand http://links.org.au/node/1748 Introduction by *Danielle Sabai* and *Pierre Rousset* June 20, 2010 -- The crackdown on the opposition in Thailand and the abuses of the regime have not been met with the solidarity response and the international condemnation that the situation requires. The regime can thus freely operate and stifle the democratic movement. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1748 Building socialism from below: The role of the communes in Venezuela http://links.org.au/node/1745 / / *Antenea Jimenez* interviewed by *Susan Spronk* and *Jeffery R. Webber* June 13, 2010 -- We met with Antenea Jimenez, a former militant with the student movement who is now working with a national network of activists who are trying to build and strengthen the /comunas/ [communes]. The comunas are community organisations promoted since 2006 by the government of Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez government as a way to consolidate a new form of state based upon production at the local level. She told us about the important advances in the process, as well as the significant challenges that remain in the struggle to build a new form of popular power from below. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1745 United States: Victory as protesters and union block Israeli ship unloading at Oakland Port http://links.org.au/node/1751 June 20, 2010 -- In a historic action and unprecedented action today, more 800 worker and community activists blocked the gates of the Oakland docks in the early morning hours, prompting longshore workers to refuse to cross the picketlines where they were scheduled to unload an Israeli ship. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1751 Marxism, socialism religion http://links.org.au/node/1750 By *Dave Holmes* Despite the apparently secular nature of so much of modern life, religion is a long way from being a spent force. For revolutionary socialists aiming to mobilise the masses for a fundamental transformation of society, religion is a question which cannot be ignored. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1750 Split amongst Cuban contras, cracks in the blockade http://links.org.au/node/1749 By *Tim Anderson* June 11, 2010 -- A major split over the US blockade of Cuba has emerged between domestic dissidents in Cuba and their former partners in Miami. The US corporate media is paying attention to what appears to be a new anti-Cuban strategy. The split represents a genuine difference in counter-revolutionary tactics, but is also linked to squabbles over money. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1749 South Africa: `World Cup for all! People before profit!' http://links.org.au/node/1747 By *Kamcilla Pillay * June 17, 2010, Durban -- /Daily News/ -- The sound of /vuvuzelas/ cut through the air in Durban on June 16 -- but for one large group there was little to celebrate. Amid cries of /phansi ngama-fat cats, phansi/ (down with fat cats, down) and a sea of banners proclaiming the government cared only for the rich, civil rights organisations took to the streets protesting against poor service delivery and the World Cup. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1747 Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez interviewed by BBC `Hardtalk'; Mark Weisbrot analyses interviewer's bias http://links.org.au/node/1746 On June 15, 2010, the BBC's /Hardtalk/ program broadcast an wide-ranging interview with Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez from the Miraflores Presidential Palace in Caracas. The interviewer, Stephen Sackur, clearly intended to provoke Chavez with a series of ill-informed and outright dishonest claims and questions. He did not succeed. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1746 South Africa: The myths and realities of the FIFA soccer World Cup http://links.org.au/node/1744 By *Dale T. McKinley*, Johannesburg June 15, 2010 -- Offering an unapologetic public critique of the FIFA Soccer World Cup at the
Re: [Marxism] Herman/Peterson on Rwanda
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Gerald Caplan responds to Herman/Peteron on Rwanda http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/65265 glparramatta wrote: It's unlikely there will have been a direct response to this genocide-denial conspiracy theory just yet. For more recent articles you might like to explore Pambazuka News at http://tinyurl.com/2742xw9 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
[Marxism] Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez interviewed by BBC `Hardtalk'
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On June 15, 2010, the BBC's /Hardtalk/ program broadcast an wide-ranging interview with Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez from the Miraflores Presidential Palace in Caracas. The interviewer, Stephen Sackur, clearly intended to provoke Chavez with a series of ill-informed and outright dishonest claims and questions. He did not succeed. Watch the three-part interview at http://links.org.au/node/1746 * 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 Or join the Links Facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10865397643 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
[Marxism] What's new at Links: World Cup, Palestine solidarity, Thailand, China, Malaysia, David Harvey, Indonesia, Angola, Greece
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == What's new at Links: World Cup, Palestine solidarity, Thailand, China, Malaysia, David Harvey, Indonesia, Angola, Greece * * * *For more reliable delivery of new content, please 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 or on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10865397643 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. * * * 2010 World Cup: Africa's turn or turning on Africa? A political economy of FIFA's African adventure http://links.org.au/node/1738 By *Ashwin Desai* and *Goolam Vahed, *PowerPoint slideshow by *Patrick Bond*. The awarding of soccer World Cup 2010 to South Africa was hailed as a great victory for the African continent and the cause of much celebration. It heightened expectations not only about the spectacle itself but about the benefits that would accrue to South Africa and the rest of Africa. This essay examines the notion of the successful bid as an African victory in the context of global power relations in football, South Africa's alleged function as a sub-imperialist power on the continent, and xenophobic attacks on African immigrants in South Africa. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1738 `Intensify pressure!' -- (updated June 8) Call by Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee gains support http://links.org.au/node/1725 By the *Palestinian BDS National Committee* (BNC) Occupied Palestine, June 1, 2010 -- Palestinian civil society calls for intensifying boycott and sanctions as Israel massacres humanitarian relief workers and international solidarity activists. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1725 New book: `Thailand's Crisis and the Fight for Democracy' http://links.org.au/node/1741 June 11, 2010 -- Associate Professor *Giles Ji Ungpakorn* (pictured above) is a political commentator and dissident from Thailand. In February 2009 he had to leave Thailand for exile in Britain because he was charged with /lèse majesté/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A8se_majest%C3%A9 for writing a book criticising the 2006 military coup. His latest book will be of interest to activists, academics and journalists who have an interest in Thai politics, democratisation and NGOs. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1741 World Cup in South Africa: Six red cards for FIFA http://links.org.au/node/1740 By* Patrick Bond*, Durban A barrage of flag-waving, /vuvuzela/-blowing hypernationalist publicity cannot drown out at least six critiques of the World Cup: * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1740 `People's Daily' columnist -- `Time to defend Chinese workers' rights' http://links.org.au/node/1737 By *Li Hong* June 7, 2010 -- Wherever exists exploitation and suppression, rebellion erupts. If the exploited are a majority of the society, the revolt draws even nearer and comes with a louder bout. For the past 30 years witnessing China's meteoric rise, multinationals and upstart home tycoons have rammed up their wealth making use of China's favourable economic policies as well as oversight loopholes. In sharp contrast, tens of millions of Chinese blue-collar workers who have genuinely generated the wealth and created the prosperity have been left far behind. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1737 Malaysia: PSM congress debates relationship with opposition Pakatan Rakyat http://links.org.au/node/1736 June 9, 2010 -- The Socialist Party of Malaysia's 12th Congress was held in Kuala Lumpur on June 5-6, 2010. Three hundred delegates from nine states, and allied organisationd and grassroots committees, attended. The congress was officiated by the PSM's national chairperson Comrade Nasir Hashim. Three papers were presented on the environmental crisis facing the world, leadership transition in PSM and the Malaysian governments economic policies. Resolutions (see below) were debated on the second day touching on idelogical questions, local government elections and the PSM's relationship with the opposition Pakatan Rakyat * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1736 Video: David Harvey -- `The crises of capitalism' http://links.org.au/node/1735 On April 26, 2010, Marxist geographer professor* David Harvey* spoke to the the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) to explain how capitalism came to dominate the world and why it resulted in
[Marxism] Palestinian trade unions call on international unions to ban Israeli ships | Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Please forward to trade union contacts and networks http://links.org.au/node/1732 *Palestinian trade union movement calls on international dockworkers' unions to block loading/offloading Israeli ships until Israel complies fully with international law and ends its illegal siege of Gaza* By the *Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee* http://bdsmovement.net/?q=node/712, Palestine June 7, 2010 -- The Palestinian trade union movement, as a key constituent member of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee (BNC) calls on dockworkers' unions worldwide to block Israeli maritime trade in response to Israel's massacre of humanitarian relief workers and activists aboard the Freedom Flotilla, until Israel complies with international law and ends its illegal blockade of Gaza. Drunk with power and impunity, Israel has ignored recent appeals by the UN secretary general as well as a near consensus among world governments to end its siege, putting the onus on international civil society to shoulder the moral responsibility of holding Israel accountable to international law and ending its criminal impunity. Dockworkers around the world have historically contributed to the struggle against injustice, most notably against the apartheid regime in South Africa, when port workers' unions refused to load/offload cargo on/from South African ships as a most effective way of protesting the apartheid regime. Today, we ask you to join the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union (SATAWU), which resolved not to offload Israeli ships http://links.org.au/node/888 in Durban in February 2009 in protest of Israel's war of aggression on Gaza, and the Swedish Dockworkers Union which resolved to blockade all Israeli ships and cargo http://links.org.au/node/1725 to and from Israel in protest of Israel's attack against the Freedom Flotilla and the ongoing deadly Israeli siege of the occupied Gaza Strip. Israel's ongoing blockade of essential food, health, educational and construction supplies is not only immoral; it is a severe form of collective punishment, a war crime that is strictly prohibited under Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, that is inducing mass poverty, water contamination, environmental collapse, chronic diseases, economic devastation and hundreds of deaths. This three-year old medieval siege against 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza, has been squarely condemned by leading legal experts, including UN special rapporteur on human rights, Prof. Richard Falk, who described it as constituting slow genocide. Israel's deplorable attacks on the unarmed ships are a violation of both international maritime law and the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, which states that the high seas should be reserved for peaceful purposes. Under article 3 of the Rome Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of Maritime Navigation of 1988, it is an international crime for any person to seize or exercise control over a ship by force, and also a crime to injure or kill any person in the process. As prominent international law scholars have recently confirmed, there is absolutely no legal justification for Israel's act of aggression against international civilian ships carrying humanitarian and developmental aid to civilians suffering under occupation and a patently illegal blockade, which has created a man-made and deliberately sustained humanitarian catastrophe. Our response must be commensurate with this crisis. Gaza today has become the test of our universal morality and our common humanity. During the South African anti-apartheid struggle, the world was inspired by the brave and principled actions of dockworkers unions who refused to handle South African cargo, contributing significantly to the ultimate fall of apartheid. Today, we call on you, dockworkers unions of the world, to do the same against Israel's occupation and apartheid. This is the most effective form of solidarity to end injustice and uphold universal human rights. Signed: *Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU)* *General Union of Palestinian Workers (GUPW)* *Federation of Independent Trade Unions (IFU)* *Palestinian Professionals Association *** *Youth Workers Movement (Fatah)* *Central Office for the Workers Movement (Fatah)* *Progressive Workers Block* *Workers Unity Block* *Workers Struggle Block* *Palestinian Federation of Unions of University Professors and Employees (PFUUPE) -- part of IFU* *Workers Liberation Front* *Labor Front Block* *Workers Solidarity Organization* *Workers Struggle Organization* ** Includes the national syndicates of engineers, agricultural engineers, doctors, dentists,
[Marxism] Trade union calls for boycotts and sanctions on Israel spread | Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Calls from Sweden, South Africa, Australia ... By the *South African Municipal Workers Union* June 4, 2010 -- At its central executive committee (CEC) meeting Friday, SAMWU unanimously endorsed a motion to immediately work towards every municipality in South Africa to become an Apartheid Israel free zone. As part of the global Boycott, Disinvestment and Sanctions Campaign (BDS) SAMWU has agreed to engage every single municipality to ensure that there are no commercial, academic, cultural, sporting or other linkages whatsoever with the Israeli regime. Every SAMWU branch will immediately approach municipal and water authorities to become part of the BDS campaign, and to publicly declare their solidarity with the Palestinian people. Many more at http://links.org.au/node/1725 (scroll down) 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
[Marxism] Michael Lebowitz: `We must choose socialism over capitalist barbarism' | Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == *Michael Lebowitz* was interviewed by *Srec'ko Horvat* during* *the Subversive Film Festival and conference on socialism, held from May 1 to May 25, 2010, in Zagreb, Croatia. It is posted at /Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal/ with Michael Lebowitz's permission. * * * *Srec'ko Horvat: **In May, as a participant of the big international conference on Socialism, you are coming to a country which had an experience with the the Yugoslavian version of socialism in the last century. Could you explain why socialism in the 21st century?* *Michael Lebowitz: *Basically, I think there is no alternative. Capitalism has always been a system that treats human beings and nature simply as a means for the purpose of making profits. The logic of capital is the growth of capital and, as Marx pointed out, its tendency is to destroy both those original sources of wealth -- human beings and nature. But how long can that go on? Production under capitalist relations is so unfulfilling that it produces people who can only get satisfaction by purchasing and possessing things. At the same time, we know that in order to be able to sell the commodities produced, capital must constantly generate new needs. It is a lethal combination -- consumerism is not an accident in capitalism. Full interview at http://links.org.au/node/1729 * 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 Or join the Links Facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10865397643 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
[Marxism] URGENT: Sign on letter TODAY - Cochabamba People's Agreement must be heard in UNFCCC negotiations
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Please consider signing on TODAY as an individual or preferably an organization/network/community group to this statement. The Bolivian government hopes to use it in negotiations starting tomorrow (Friday 28 May) in UNFCCC to push for key proposals made in the Cochabamba People's Agreement to be included in negotiations. INTRO TEXT This is the pronouncement of the **World People's Movement for Mother Earth, which demands that the United Nations climate change negotiations be inclusive, transparent, and equitable, and incorporate the proposals presented by the World People's Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth in order to find real solutions to the climate crisis and save humanity and our Mother Earth as we know it. Este es el pronunciamiento del Movimiento Mundial de los Pueblos por la Madre Tierra, que reclama un proceso de negociaciones sobre cambio climatico en Naciones Unidas, incluyente, transparente y equitativo, que incorpore las propuestas de los pueblos que han sido presentadas como resultado de la Conferencia Mundial de los Pueblos sobre Cambio Climatico y los Derechos de la Madre Tierra, para alcanzar soluciones reales a la crisis climatica, y salvar a la humanidad y a nuestra Madre Tierra como hoy la conocemos. SIGN ON LETTER *People**'**s Voices Must be Heard in Climate Negotiations* *Official UNFCCC Negotiating Text Ignores World People's Conference Solutions* In April 2010 more than 35,000 people from 140 countries gathered in Cochabamba, Bolivia and developed the historic Cochabamba People's Agreement** http://pwccc.wordpress.com/2010/04/24/peoples-agreement/, a consensus-based document reflecting substantive solutions to the climate crisis. We, the undersigned organizations, both participated in and/or supported this historic process. Reflecting the voices of global civil society and the agreements reached in 17 working groups, the Plurinational State of Bolivia made an official proposal, comprised of the core components of the Cochabamba People's Agreement, to the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action (AWG-LCA) under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Since then, the accord has gained support and recognition by various nations and regional bodies including ALBA (Bolivarian Alliance of Our Americas) and UNASUR (Union of South American Nations). We are therefore deeply concerned that the new text proposed in the AWG-LCA as a basis for climate change negotiations does not reflect _any_ of the main conclusions reached in Cochabamba. The Chair and the Vice Chair of the AWG-LCA (from Zimbabwe and the United States respectively) have instead incorporated all of the proposals of the Copenhagen Accord, which does not even have the consensus of the United Nations. We urge the UNFCCC to embrace the conclusions reached by social movements, indigenous peoples and international civil society in Cochabamba. It is both undemocratic and non-transparent to exclude particular proposals from the negotiations, and it is imperative that the United Nations listens to the global community on this issue critical to humanity. We call on all countries in the United Nations, and in particular the President and Vice-President of the AWG-LCA, to include the core conclusions of the Cochabamba People's Accord in the negotiations in the run-up to Cancun. These life- and earth-saving proposals include: 1. A 50% reduction of domestic greenhouse gas emissions by developed countries for the period 2013-2017 under the Kyoto Protocol, domestically and without reliance on market mechanisms. 2. The objective of stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations at 300ppm. 3. The need to begin the process of considering the proposed Universal Declaration on the Rights of Mother Earth to reestablish harmony with nature. 4. The obligation of developed countries to honor their climate debt toward developing countries and our Mother Earth. 5. The provision of financial resources equal to 6% of GDP by developed countries to help confront the climate change crisis. 6. The creation of a mechanism for the integral management and conservation of forests that, unlike REDD-plus, respects the sovereignty of states, guarantees the rights and participation of indigenous peoples and forest dependent communities, and is not based on the carbon market regime. 7. The implementation of measures for recognizing the rights of Indigenous peoples must be secured in accordance with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and applicable universal human rights instruments and agreements. This includes respect for the knowledge and rights of indigenous peoples;
Re: [Marxism] Marxist Interventions 2010
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == For an alternative analysis, which unfortuately the article below largely ignores (and while mentioned, does not provide the correct link) can be found at http://links.org.au/node/155 (The left and UN military intervention in East Timor). --- In greenleft_discuss...@yahoogroups.com, Tom O'Lincoln suar...@... wrote: http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/mi/2/2.htm Marxist Interventions is an Australian on-line journal. The articles in this issue focus on major controversies within and beyond the Australian left. Few issues have challenged the Australian left as much as the Howard Government's 1999 military intervention in East Timor. Contrary to the common view that the intervention was a humanitarian action forced on a reluctant government by popular pressure, Sam Pietsch analyses it as an imperialist use of military power to secure longstanding strategic interests of the Australian state. The intervention also enabled the Howard Government to increase military spending and act more aggressively to assert imperial 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
[Marxism] What's new at Links: Thailand, 1 million reads, Neville Alexander on SA, renewables tax, Besancenot on Greece, William Morris, Philippines, Bolivia, Arabic
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == What's new at Links: Thailand, 1 million reads, Neville Alexander on SA, renewables tax, Besancenot on Greece, William Morris, Philippines, Bolivia, Arabic * * * *For more reliable delivery of new content, please 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 or on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10865397643 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. * * * Thailand: Past the point of no return http://links.org.au/node/1696 By *Danielle Sabai* [This article was written before the Thai government's crushing of the Red Shirts' protest site in Bangkok on May 19, 2010. However, it provides important background to the events.] May 17, 2010 -- The political crisis engulfing Thailand is not a clap of thunder in an otherwise calm sky. The discourse about a country where everyone lives in harmony and where there is no class struggle but a people united behind its adored sovereign has nothing to do with reality. For several decades, the Thai people have been subjected to authoritarian regimes or dictatorships and a king in their service. The Thai élites have however not succeeded in preventing regular uprisings against the established order, including those in 1973, 1976 and 1992, all repressed by bloodbaths. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1696 1,000,000 articles read, 750,000 visits -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal http://links.org.au/node/1694 May 21, 2010 -- At 11.59pm on May 19, 2010, the 1,000,000th article was read at /Links International Journal of Socialist (/since records began being kept on April 4, 2008). The article was accessed somebody in Toronto, Canada -- the 744,733rd visit to /Links/ -- who entered site at the fascinating speech by veteran South African revolutionary socialist Neville Alexander. On May 21, at 5.50pm, /Links International Journal of Socialsit Renewal/ received its 750,000th visitor, who was from Thailand and who read one of Giles Ji Ungpakorn's essential articles on the struggle for democracy in that country. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1694 Neville Alexander: South Africa -- An unfinished revolution? http://links.org.au/node/1693 / / [The following address -- the fourth Strini Moodley Annual Memorial Lecture, held at the University of KwaZulu-Natal on May 13, 2010 -- was delivered by renowned South African revolutionary socialist and theorist Neville Alexander. From 1964 to 1974 he was imprisoned on Robben Island. *Strinivasa Rajoo Strini Moodley* (December 22, 1945--April 27, 2006) was a founding member of the Black Consciousness Movement in South Africa. In 1976, he was convicted of terrorism in a trial involving members of the South African Students' Organisation and the Black People's Convention, and imprisoned on Robben Island. The speech is posted at /Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal/ with Neville Alexander's permission.] * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1693 Australia: Tax billionaire companies to fund rapid transition to renewable energy http://links.org.au/node/1699 By *Dick Nichols* May 24, 2010 -- Even as the Australian federal Labor government sticks its Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme [carbon trading scheme] into the freezer the climate change crisis intensifies, demanding a response adequate to its enormity. The goal dictated by climate science is annual emissions reductions of 5% from now to 2020 -- the critical transition decade. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1699 Olivier Besancenot: `We are all Greek workers! http://links.org.au/node/1698 By *Olivier Besancenot* and *Pierre-François Grond, *translated by *Richard Fidler* and *Nathan Rao* May 14, 2010 -- /Le Monde/ via /The Bullet/ -- The events in Greece concern us all. The Greek people are paying for a crisis and a debt not of their making. Today it is the Greeks, tomorrow it will be others, for the same causes will produce the same effects if we allow it. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1698 Debunking the `Menshevik myth': William Morris and revolutionary politics http://links.org.au/node/1697 By *Graham Milner* With some great revolutionary figures in world history, and in international labour history in particular, it has been found necessary for historians or biographers to dig out their subjects from beneath a load of calumny and oblivion, a
[Marxism] Bolivia: When fantasy trumps reality | Green Left Weekly
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/44208 Saturday, May 22, 2010 By Federico Fuentes Ironically, while the left is one of the fiercest critics of biased media coverage, it can also fall in the trap of corporate media distortions, particularly if its coverage dovetails with its own fantasies. A May 14 article http://www.sa.org.au/international/2721-general-strike-challenges-bolivian-government by Daniel Lopez published on the website of Australian group Socialist Alternative is proof of this. The article echoes the view of a May 10 article on the BBC website, which has a clear dislike of Bolivian President Evo Morales. The BBC article argued a “general strike” by Bolivian unions marked “the end of the honeymoon period between the left-wing Mr Morales and his power base among the country's poor”. This position fits nicely with the outlook of Socialist Alternative, which also condemns Bolivia’s first indigenous president. Lopez wrote that Morales’ moves “against the working class” have led to “the first large scale action of workers in opposition to the Morales government”. According to Lopez, “demonstrations were held around the country [on May 4], accompanied by a 24-hour general strike which was then extended indefinitely”. Despite the “sell-out” of the Bolivian Workers’ Centre (COB) leadership, Lopez assured us “the strike is well into its second week”. A deal struck between Morales and the COB has been “resolutely rejected”, Lopez said, and “the strike continues”. *The ‘indefinite general strike’ that wasn’t* On May 1, as well as nationalising four electricity companies, Morales restated his government would not increase workers’ salaries by more than 5%. This was met with protests in various cities, the largest of which was the COB-organised rally in La Paz. One indication of its size is La Prensa’s report that a 300 strong contingent of factory workers (whose union was a key organiser of the protest) tried to jump in front of the miners at the front of the rally, leading to clashes. COB general secretary Pedro Montes announced a follow-up 24-hour strike for May 4. Reporting on the May 4 “general strike”, Bolpress said, “hundreds of teachers, factory workers and health workers alternated down the Prado in La Paz” in divided marches. La Prensa said “at least 500” factory workers descended on the labour ministry, where they attempted to burn down the front door, leading to 15 arrests. Pedro Alberto Calderon, a leader of the La Paz factory workers, continuing the dispute with the miners by calling Montes’s his expulsion from the COB “because he has betrayed the whole working class” by not marching in La Paz, La Prensa said. Montes instead chose to join a miners’ march in Oruro. News sources also reported 500 health workers marched in Santa Cruz. In Cochabamba, factory workers blocked the local bus terminal. About 500 to 1000 marched in Sucre and smaller protests were held in the other capital cities. “In the combative city of El Alto”, Bolpress said, “productive activity was normal”, as in most of Bolivia. On May 7, a COB assembly called for an “indefinite general strike” to begin May 10, /La Razon/ said. Bolpress said that day, Bolivia’s largest peasant organisation, the United Confederation of Bolivian Peasant Workers (CSUTCB), the national women’s peasant federation, the coca growers’ union from the Chapare, and the Departmental Workers Centre of Santa Cruz defended the government and against COB’s actions measures, because “they only hurt the brothers and sisters of the countryside and the country”. The CSUTCB is the largest COB affiliate, representing 1.5 million peasants. It is a key part of Morales’s Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) party. By May 11, everyone agreed the “indefinite general strike” was a flop. /La Razon/’s website that day read: “Scarce support for general strike”. Union leaders representing teachers, health workers and factory workers did not strike, but were negotiating with the government, /La Razon/ said. In an article headlined “The government’s offers weaken COB protests”, Bolpress said union divisions “weakened to the point of converting to almost null the general strike”. Instead, /La Prensa/ said, 300 workers, mainly miners, gathered in Caracollo to begin a 200km walk to La Paz. The night before, the COB and the government reached a tentative agreement to lower the retirement age from 65 to 58 (51 for miners). Bosses would also be forced to contribute to workers’ pension funds. The COB, affiliated unions and government officials began to discuss the new proposals. Bolpress said that, although the COB agreed to the new proposals, some teachers, health workers and factory workers
[Marxism] [Fwd: [Nocarbontrade-l] Creation of synthetic life aimed at capturing CO2 from the air and at making oil substitutes]
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Venter gets $600 million from ExxonMobil to create synthetic algae that produce agrofuels. Amounts for CO2 capture not mentioned. Scientists create synthetic life form with a computer and four bottles of chemicals By Clive Cookson in London Financial Times Published: May 21 2010 03:00 | Scientists have turned inanimate chemicals into a living organism in an experiment that raises profound questions about the essence of life. Craig Venter, the US genomics pioneer, announced last night that scientists at his laboratories in Maryland and California had succeeded in their 15-year project to make the world's first synthetic cells - bacteria called Mycoplasma mycoides . We have passed through a critical psychological barrier, Dr Venter told the Financial Times. It has changed my own thinking, both scientifically and philosophically, about life and how it works. The bacteria's genes were all constructed in the laboratory from four bottles of chemicals on a chemical synthesiser, starting with information on a computer, he said. The research - published online by the journal Science - was hailed as a landmark by many independent scientists and philosophers. Venter is creaking open the most profound door in humanity's history, said Julian Savulescu, ethics professor at Oxford University. This is a step towards . . . creation of living beings with capacities and natures that could never have naturally evolved. The synthetic bacteria have 14 watermark sequences attached to their genome - inert stretches of DNA added to distinguish them from their natural counterparts. They behaved like natural bacteria. M mycoides was chosen as a simple microbe with which to prove the technology. It has no immediate application. But scientists at the J Craig Venter Institute and Synthetic Genomics , the company funding their research, intend to move on to more useful targets that may not exist in nature. They are particularly interested in designing algae that can capture carbon dioxide from the air and produce hydrocarbon fuels. Synthetic Genomics has a $600m deal with ExxonMobil to make algal biofuels. We have looked hard at natural algae and we can't find one that can make the fuels we want on the scales we need, Dr Venter said. The researchers built up the synthetic genome of M mycoides , with its million chemical letters, by stitching together shorter stretches of DNA, each about 1,000 letters long. They then transferred the completed genome into the shell of another bacterium M capricolum whose own DNA had been removed. The transplanted genome booted up the host cell and took over its biological machinery. After 30 cell divisions, there were billions of synthetic bacteria in the lab dishes - all of them making exclusively the biological molecules associated with M mycoides. ___ Nocarbontrade-l mailing list Info and options: http://mailman-new.greennet.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/nocarbontrade-l To unsubscribe, email nocarbontrade-l-unsubscr...@fern.org 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
Re: [Marxism] query on Thai protests
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Most of Giles Ji Ungpakorn's articles, with other material, have also appeared at links International Journal of Socialist Renewal. Collected at http://links.org.au/taxonomy/term/296 Terry 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
[Marxism] Thailand: Past the point of no return | Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == By *Danielle Sabai* [This article was written before the Thai government's crushing of the Red Shirts' protest site in Bangkok on May 19, 2010. However, it provides important background to the events.] May 17, 2010 -- The political crisis engulfing Thailand is not a clap of thunder in an otherwise calm sky. The discourse about a country where “everyone lives in harmony and where there is no class struggle but a people united behind its adored sovereign” has nothing to do with reality. For several decades, the Thai people have been subjected to authoritarian regimes or dictatorships and a king in their service. The Thai élites have however not succeeded in preventing regular uprisings against the established order, including those in 1973, 1976 and 1992, all repressed by bloodbaths. Since 2005, Thailand has faced a new and deep political crisis, longer than the previous ones, and whose outcome cannot be, as in the past, the stifling of the aspirations of the Thai people. The economic boom of the period from 1986-1996 has brought about irreversible changes in society, notably the formation of a working class of around 7 million and structural political reforms. Unlike in previous crises, ordinary Thais – peasants, urban workers and the middle classes of Bangkok, the less well-off – have become conscious of their political weight and begun to make demands. Full article at http://links.org.au/node/1696 More coverage of the Thai crisis at http://links.org.au/taxonomy/term/296 * 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 Or join the Links Facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10865397643 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
[Marxism] Thailand: International left solidarity with the democracy movement | Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Statements by the New Anti-Capitalist Party of France, the Socialist Party of Malaysia, the Fourth International, Focus on Global South, Australia Asia Worker Links. See also Asia-Pacific left statement -- `Resolve crisis through democracy, not crackdown!' http://links.org.au/node/1613, by Asian left and progressive organisations. Full statements at http://links.org.au/node/1688 More coverage of the Thai crisis at http://links.org.au/taxonomy/term/296 * 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 Or join the Links Facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10865397643 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
[Marxism] What's new at Links: Thailand, Nepal, soccer World Cup, solidarity with Greece, Southern Africa, Evo on climate, Scotland, climate debt
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == What's new at Links: Thailand, Nepal, soccer World Cup, solidarity with Greece, Southern Africa, Evo on climate, Scotland, climate debt * * * *For more reliable delivery of new content, please 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 or on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10865397643 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. * * * Thailand: Tyrants cling to power over the dead bodies of the people http://links.org.au/node/1685 By *Giles Ji Ungpakorn* Update, 03.25 hrs Sunday, May 16, 2010, Bangkok time -- Earlier on Saturday, unconfirmed reports indicated that Abhisit Vejjajiva's soldiers had shot dead at least 50 people. Later, 22 named deaths were confirmed by the Erawan emergency centre, and 172 injured (including one Canadian, one Polish, one Burmese, one Liberian). But an official from the centre says that the real death toll is higher but cannot be reported at the moment. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1685 Nepal's May days: `This struggle has not ended. The general strike was only a dress rehearsal' http://links.org.au/node/1681 Story and photos by *Jed Brandt*, Kathmandu May 11, 2010--The largest mobilisation of human beings in Nepal's history brought hundreds of thousands of villagers into the capital Kathmandu for the May 1 protests -- and the entire country to a standstill. On May 1, this city belonged to the members and supporters of the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist). From Kalinki to the Old Bus Park, packed buses poured into the city. Every seat and aisle was filled. Young men perched on the roofs. Bags of rice, lentils and vegetables were stockpiled in the schools, wedding halls and construction sites that served as makeshift camps for the protesters. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1681 Thailand: Red Shirt protests -- what has been achieved? ??? http://links.org.au/node/1676 By *Giles Ji Ungpakorn* May 11, 2010 -- Pro-democracy Red Shirt protests in Bangkok, which started in mid-March, are about to be wound up. Leaders [of the United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship, UDD] have accepted a compromise with the military-backed government of Abhisit Vejjajiva. Elections will not be held immediately, but on November 14. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1676 Australia/Thailand: In solidarity with the democracy protests in Bangkok http://links.org.au/node/1686 By *Thai Red Australia Group for Democracy* May 16, 2010 -- Since March 14, Bangkok has been the scene of mass pro-democracy protests. The protesters known as Red Shirts have demanded the resignation of unelected Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and new elections. Abhisit came to power in December through the overthrow of a democratically elected government by right-wing Yellow Shirt gangs, assisted by the military and elements of the royal family. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1686 South Africa: Will the World Cup party be worth the hangover? http://links.org.au/node/1684 By *Patrick Bond*, Durban May 15, 2010 -- On June 11, South Africans start /jol/ing [/jol/ -- to have fun, to party] like no time since liberation in April 1994, and of course it is a huge honour for our young democracy to host the most important sporting spectacle short of the Olympics. All the ordinary people who have worked so hard in preparation deserve gratitude and support, especially the construction workers, cleaners, municipal staff, health-care givers and volunteers who will not receive due recognition. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1684 Asian left parties: `In solidarity with the Greek people's resistance against austerity' http://links.org.au/node/1683 /The following joint statement of solidarity -- initiated by Socialist Alliance, Australia// -- has been signed by a number of left and progressive organisations in the Asia-Pacific region. If your organisation would like to sign on, please email internatio...@socialist-alliance.org./* Joint statement from Asia-Pacific left and progressive organisations* May 13, 2010 We, left and progressive organisations from the Asia-Pacific region, express our solidarity with the resistance of the Greek people against the harsh austerity being imposed upon them by the governments of the European Union (EU) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
[Marxism] South Africa: Will the World Cup party be worth the hangover? | Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == By *Patrick Bond*, Durban May 15, 2010 -- On June 11, South Africans start /jol/ing [/jol/ -- to have fun, to party] like no time since liberation in April 1994, and of course it is a huge honour for our young democracy to host the most important sporting spectacle short of the Olympics. All the ordinary people who have worked so hard in preparation deserve gratitude and support, especially the construction workers, cleaners, municipal staff, health-care givers and volunteers who will not receive due recognition. But balancing psychological benefits against vast socioeconomic and political costs is vital, for we will hear plenty about the latter from visitors who will see us at our best and worst. One of the world’s greatest sportswriters, Dave Zirin, called Durban’s new Moses Mabhida Stadium the most breathtaking he’d ever seen, but provided us a needed reality check: “This is a country where staggering wealth and poverty already stand side by side. The World Cup, far from helping this situation, is just putting a magnifying glass on every blemish of this post-apartheid nation.” Full article at http://links.org.au/node/1684 * 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 Or join the Links Facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10865397643 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
[Marxism] Thailand: Tyrants cling to power over the dead bodies of the people
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://links.org.au/node/1685 By *Giles Ji Ungpakorn* May 15, 2010 -- Bangkok is bathed in blood, yet again. Unconfirmed reports indicate that Abhisit's soldiers have shot dead at least 50 people so far since May 13. Hundreds have been injured. The government and military say there are 500 terrorists at the protest site in Bangkok. Earlier they said that they would use snipers to shoot terrorists. The only terrorists are in the government, the army and the palace. The tyrants say that the Red Shirts are determined to overthrow the monarchy and therefore it is justifiable to kill them. So having a monarchy is an excuse to kill anyone who fights for democracy and social justice? Various government spokespeople, including Abhisit's academic-for-hire Panitan Wattanayagorn and censorship boss Satit Wongnongtuay, continue to lie and lie again, claiming that troops are only firing in self defence. Yet all press reports show indiscriminate shooting of unarmed civilians, including a 10-year-old boy, a paramedic and foreign news reporters. Splits are appearing in the security forces with reports of some police or army units returning fire with the advancing troops. This is indeed a civil war situation and the government cannot hope to control the situation. Red Shirts are determined to stand firm. Millions of people are extremely angry with the government, the military and the monarchy. Fake human rights groups call on both sides to stop the violence. Yet it is only one side that is using lethal violence against unarmed pro-democracy demonstrators. Even Reporters Without Borders demands that both sides guarantee the safety of reporters. How can Red Shirts guarantee anyone's safety when they are being murdered in cold blood. Many so-called news reports write that troops fired on rioters. No one is rioting except the army. Others talk about protests turning violent. It is not the protesters who are violent. Unarmed pro-democracy protesters are being systematically murdered in order to keep Abhisit and his military-backed government in power. The king is silent as usual. His only job, apart from counting his wealth, is to legitimise every bloody act that the army commits. Yet so-called analysts write that he has held the country together. The fact is he has supported every crack down on democracy. He is weak and spineless. That is why millions of Red Shirts are becoming republicans. The United Nations has just selected Thailand to be on the Human Rights Committee. What a joke! But what can one expect from a body controlled by warmongers. Red Shirts throughout the country are standing firm in the bloody fight for democracy, social justice and human dignity. I salute them! 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
[Marxism] Asian left parties: `In solidarity with the Greek people's resistance against austerity'
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://links.org.au/node/1683 *Joint statement from Asia-Pacific left and progressive organisations* May 13, 2010 We, left and progressive organisations from the Asia-Pacific region, express our solidarity with the resistance of the Greek people against the harsh austerity being imposed upon them by the governments of the European Union (EU) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The proposed rescue package for the Greek economy by the IMF-EU has triggered a huge struggle that will have worldwide ramifications for working people. On May 5, as Greece's parliament debated the package, at least 500,000 people took over the streets of Athens as part of a nationwide general strike, the largest demonstration in Greece in 30 years. The general strike involved half of the working population of Greece. Protests are continuing across Greece, and the trade unions and left organisations have vowed to resist implementation of the austerity package. Protesters marched again in huge numbers on May 6, as the Greek parliament voted to adopt the package. Strikes and demonstrations against the package continue. At the root of this struggle lies the fundamental question: Who will pay for the global capitalist economic crisis --- the working people suffering most from its effects or the powerful bankers and rich capitalists who caused it? This is an attempt to shift the cost of the crisis onto working people. The Greek workers did not cause the financial crisis, yet they are being told they must suffer as a result. The very financial markets that were rescued by government bailouts that followed the global financial crisis are now demanding massive cuts in public expenditure and public services, and a new round of neoliberalism. In Greece, this includes: * Freezing of wages and retirement pensions in the public sector for five years; * Making it easier to lay-off public servants; * Increases in the regressive goods and services tax rates; * Increased taxes on fuel, spirits and tobacco; * Increases in the retirement age for women and men; * Greater restrictions on access to a full retirement pension; this pension will be calculated on the worker's average salary over their working life, instead of their final salary (a net cut of 45%-60%); * Government spending cuts of 1.5 billion euros (less money for education and health care) and public investments will also be reduced by 1.5 billion euros; * A new minimum salary for youth and long-term unemployed; * Greater deregulation of the economy and more privatisation. If the vicious austerity measures are successfully implemented in Greece, workers in other European countries (such as Portugal, Spain and Italy) will be the next. But it won't stop there. The working people of every country have a stake in the success of the resistance of Greece's working people in stopping the attacks on their living standards. In the response to the attacks, the Greek mass movement's demands include: * Refuse to pay the debt; * Public and social control of the financial system, including nationalising banks; * Re/nationalisation of businesses and public utilities with strategic importance, with public and social control; * Increase salaries and pensions. No increase in the retirement age. Increase job recruitment and freeze lay-offs. * Increase tax rates on big capital, increase taxes on large real estate and stock transactions; * Slash military spending; * Increase spending on health and education, unemployment relief and spending on social infrastructure. No commercialisation of education and health; The capitalist system is inhuman and offers no future for working people. A victory for Greece's workers will strengthen our fight against capitalism's onslaught all over the world. The massive struggle and spirit of defiance shown by Greece's workers have inspired us. The signatories of this statement support the Greek people's protests and offer our unconditional solidarity with those mobilising in massive numbers to fight the austerity measures. /Signed by:/ *Alliance Party of New Zealand* *People's Democratic Party (PRD), Indonesia* *Power of the Labouring Masses Party http://www.masa.ph/ (PLM), Philippines* *Socialist Alliance http://www.socialist-alliance.org/, Australia* *Socialist Aotearoa http://socialistaotearoa.blogspot.com/, New Zealand* *Socialist Party of Malaysia* http://www.parti-sosialis.org/* (PSM) * *Socialist Worker New Zealand* http://unityaotearoa.blogspot.com/ *Workers Party of New Zealand* http://workersparty.org.nz/ *Working Peoples Association (PRP),
[Marxism] Greek crisis reveals ‘progressive’ Europe’s reactionary stew | Links International Jou rnal of Socialist Renewal
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == By *Paul Kellogg* May 3, 2010 -- The bailout of the debt-ridden Greek government seems finally to be complete. The European Union (EU) – most centrally the French and German treasuries – along with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) will provide €110 billion ($150 billion) in emergency loans. The price for these loans will be high. Along with steep tax increases and cuts in spending, the loans are conditional on a public sector wage freeze being extended through to 2014.[1] This is in reality a wage cut, as there will be drastic changes to the so-called “bonuses” – holiday pay that has become an essential part of the income package of low-paid public sector workers. The anger at these cuts is everywhere in Greek society. Giorgos Papadapoulos is a 28-year-old policeman who normally confronts demonstrators. But in March he put aside his riot shield and joined the mass protests which have become a regular part of life in Greece. “It’s a different feeling for me”, he told journalists while he was on the demonstration. “But this is important. It hurts me and my family.”[2] However, the crisis in Greece has revealed not just a shift to the left in Europe. It has also brought to the surface a seamy reactionary underside to politics in the EU portion of the Eurasian landmass. Full article at http://links.org.au/node/1671 * 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 Or join the Links Facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10865397643 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
[Marxism] What's new at Links: Nepal, May Day, Bolivia: People's Climate conf. reports docs, Thailand, Scotland, Greece, 5th International
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == What's new at Links: Nepal, May Day, Bolivia: People's Climate conf. reports docs, Thailand, Scotland, Greece, 5th International * * * *For more reliable delivery of new content, please 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 or on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10865397643 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. * * * Eyewitness report: Nepal, May 1 -- 500,000+ mobilise, talks fail, general strike is on http://links.org.au/node/1656 By *Jed Brandt*, Kathmandu May 1, 2010 -- Late into the night, after a long May 1 in Kathmandu: I just left the Radisson Hotel where negotiations had been going on. Dr Baburam Bhattarai, a top leader of the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) and its negotiating team, came out the doors to say that the three negotiating parties have not reached an agreement. The general strike is on. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1656 May Day 2010: For workers' rights and the environment, oppose racism, defend revolutions http://links.org.au/node/1657 May 1, 2010 -- May Day -- saw millions of people mobilising around globe to oppose attacks on workers' rights, reverse the degradation of the environment, defend the rights of oppressed peoples and migrants and -- as in Nepal, Venezuela, Cuba and Bolivia -- to make, extend or defend unfolding revolutions. In *Nepal*, Jed Brandt reports that between 500,000 and 1 million people flooded the streets on Kathmandu to demand the resignation of the government. The massive mobilisation -- called by the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) and the Young Communist League -- is the prelude to a general strike that begins May 2. * Read more more May day reports from around the world http://links.org.au/node/1657 Nepal's streets ahead of May 1: `We make the power' http://links.org.au/node/1654 The Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) has called for workers and villagers to converge on Kathmandu for a final conflict to win a new constitution. The Maoists are calling for a sustained mobilisation, with the hope that an overwhelming showing can push the government out with a minimum of bloodshed and stay the hand of the Nepal army. Story and photos by *Jed Brandt*, Kathmandu. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1654 (Updated May 1) Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth, and texts from the People's Conference on Climate Change http://links.org.au/node/1647 The following documents were also adopted by the World People's Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth on April 22, 2010, in Bolivia. They are: *1.* The Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth; *2.* Shared Visions document; *NEW: 3. *Structural causes;* NEW: 4.* Referendum on climate change; *5. *Document of the Working Group on Agriculture and Food Sovereignty; *6.* Document of the Working Group on Climate Debt; *7.* Document of the Working Group on Climate Finance; *8.* Indigenous Peoples' Declaration; *9.* International Tribunal of Climate and Environmental Justice working group; *NEW:* *10.* Dangers of the carbon market; *NEW:* *11.* Working Group No. 10 on the Kyoto Protocol and greenhouse gas emissions reduction; *NEW:* *12.* Working Group 13: Intercultural dialogue knowledge sharing, knowledge and technology; *NEW: 13.* Final conclusions of Working Group 2: Harmony with Nature to Live Well; *NEW: 14.* Working Group 6: Climate Change and Migration. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1647 Bolivia: Full text -- `People's Agreement' from World People's Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth http://links.org.au/node/1644 * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1644 Thailand: It's about democracy http://links.org.au/node/1652 By *Giles Ji Ungpakorn* After mass right-wing Yellow Shirt protests against the government in Bangkok in 2006, Thaksin Shinawatra's Thai Rak Thai government dissolved parliament and called elections. Yet the Democrat Party and others refused to take part in these elections because they knew they would lose. This led to a military coup. The military wrote their own undemocratic constitution. Fresh elections were held under the control of the military, yet Thaksin's party won an overall majority again. Abhisit Vejjajiva's government is only in power by using two judiciary coups,
[Marxism] Joint Asian left statement -- May Day 2010: `Workers will win!'
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == *From *http://links.org.au/node/1650 * * *All over the world workers are organising ... * *We are organising to demand a living wage.* For health and safety at work. For compensation and rehabilitation. For the rights of migrant workers and refugees, for citizenship rights for migrant workers and their families. For the right to employment on equal terms. Workers are organising against deportations, against racism, against discrimination. Workers are organising against wars that are a disaster to millions of workers. *Workers are organising for secure jobs. *Against casualisation, contracting out and outsourcing. Workers are organising for the rights of women workers. For better working conditions, to stop work becoming harder, faster, more stressful and dangerous. For shorter working hours, for paid leave and paid holidays. For affordable housing and health care. For free education and welfare, against child labour and poverty and inequality. Workers are organising for the rights of Indigenous communities who have been stripped of their land and resources. Workers are organising to fight discrimination against minorities, women, lesbians and gays. *While we struggle against these problems,* we see that our planet is being ruined through reckless, wasteful and unsustainable production for proft. *Workers can fix these problems.* Workers can reorganise all industry to produce for peoples' need instead of proft. Resources can be distributed to people and places who need them so that our children will have a future. *To do this workers have to dismantle imperialism and the capitalist system.* We need to make decisions together in our own workplaces, unions and political organisations about the way production and sharing need to be restructured. We need this. We have the numbers. We control production. Capitalists will be defeated. Read in /bahasa/ http://links.org.au/node/1653. Click here to endorse the joint May Day statement http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/YK3X886 *Endorsed by:* All Pakistan Federation of United Trade Unions http://www.labourunity.org/ Anadolu Kultur Merkezi ( http://www.anatolian.org.au/Anatolian Cultural Centre, Australia) http://www.anatolian.org.au/ Australia Asia Worker Links, Australia http://aawl.org.au/ Bangladesh Saniukta Tanti Samity (National Organisation of Self Employed Handloom Weavers Workers, Bangladesh) Chennai Metro Construction Unorganised Workers Union Tamilnadu, India ChinaWorker http://chinaworker.info/ Committee for Asian Women, Thailand http://www.cawinfo.org/ Committee for a Workers' International, Malaysia http://asocialistmalaysia.blogspot.com/ Communications Union CEPU (TS Vic), Australia http://www.cepu.net.au/ Disability Support Pensioners Australia http://home.vicnet.net.au/%7Edsp/ Ejaz Ul Haque Siddiqui (Pakistan Workers Federation) http://www.pwf.org.pk/ G.R.S.E. Workmen's Union, India Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union http://gawu.net/v3/ ITGLWF Philippines council http://www.itglwf.org/ Jatio Garment Sramik Federation (National Garment Workers Federation, Bangladesh) Jatiyo Sramik Jote (National Workers Unity, Bangladesh) Kesatuan Kebangsaan Pekerja-Pekerja Perusahaan Alat-Alat Pengangkutan Dan Sekutu (National Union of Transport Equipment Allied Industries Workers, Malaysia) Konfederasi Kongres Aliansi Serikat Buruh Indonesia -- KASBI (Confederation Congress of Indonesia Unions Alliance) http://kasbiindonesia.multiply.com/ Korea Federation of Construction Industry Trade Unions Latin American Solidarity Network -- LASNET, Australia (Red de Solidaridad con los Pueblos Latinoamericanos) http://www.latinlasnet.org/ Migrant Workers Solidarity Network, Bangladesh Migrants Rights Council, India New Trade Union Initiative, India http://ntui.org.in/ Pakistan Labour Federation Partai Rakyat Demokratik -- PRD (Peoples Democratic Party, Indonesia) Parti Sosialis Malaysia -- PSM (Socialist Party of Malaysia) http://www.parti-sosialis.org/ Partido Lakas ng Masa (Strength of the People Party, Philippines http://www.masa.ph/) Partido ng Manggagawa (Labor Party, Philippines) http://www.laborpartyphilippines.org/ Peace and Justice for Colombia, Australia http://colombiasolidarity.net/ Perhimpunan Rakyat Pekerja (Working People Association, Indonesia) Progressive Labour Party, Australia http://www.progressivelabour.org/ Revolutionary Socialist Party, Australia Socialist Alliance, Australia http://www.socialist-alliance.org/ Socialist Alternative, Australia http://www.sa.org.au/ Socialist Party, Australia http://www.socialistpartyaustralia.org/ Socialist Worker, Arotearoa New Zealand http://unityaotearoa.blogspot.com/ Solidarity, Australia
[Marxism] Distorted account of Morales speech distracts from fundamental issue of climate change
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Inaccurate and distorted account of Morales speech distracts from fundamental issue of climate change Friday 23 April 2010 (http://www.cmpcc.org.bo/Inaccurate-and-distorted-account) *MEDIA ADVISORY* A few national and international media outlets, instead of carrying out analysis and reports on the fundamental challenge of climate change, decided to distract the public with a distorted and inaccurate account of a speech by President Morales. Various media reports are misinforming the public, saying that Morales has linked eating chicken with homosexuality. In his exact words, Morales said that “chicken that we are eating is full of feminine hormones, which is why men who eat this chicken have changes in their being as men. I have read some information that isn’t from me, asking about a daughter of one and a half years who already had breasts..” Morales said nothing about sexuality, only that eating meat with artificial hormones is producing changes in our body. This is a perspective supported by some scientists, and reflected in European Union policy which bans the use of certain hormones in food. The British pharmaceutical specialist and representative on the Veterinary Products Committee, John Verall BDA said in 2008 that “it is very clear that much smaller quantities of sexual hormones in our food than we previously thought is causing abnormalities in the genitals of boys premature puberty in girls and increasing the risk of cancer later in life.” In addition to these distortions, the coverage given to this issue demonstrates that the media is not treating the climate crisis with sufficient seriousness. During the whole conference, there have been debates on fundamental issues such as adaptation to climate change, testimonies of communities that are already suffering climate change, and the proposals of concrete actions such as the formation of a Climate Justice Tribunal. The fact that a few media outlets have chosen instead to manipulate the public is a poor reflection of the state of some media who should be taking responsibility for informing the public about a crisis that will affect us all. For more information: Gadir Lavadenz – me...@cmpcc.org o tel (+591 2) 2 113161 Nick Buxton – nicholasbux...@gmail.com o tel +591 740 56695 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
[Marxism] Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth, and other texts adopted by the People's Conference on Climate Change | Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == The following documents were also adopted by the World People's Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth on April 22, 2010, in Bolivia. They are: 1. The Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth; 2. Document of the Working Group on Agriculture and Food Sovereignty; 3. Document of the Working Group on Climate Debt; 4. Document of the Working Group on Climate Finance. [More will be posted as they become available.] Full documents at http://links.org.au/node/1647 The Bolivian government will submit them to the United Nations for consideration. The main document, the People's Agreement, is available *HERE* http://links.org.au/node/1644. For all Links' coverage on the conference, go to http://links.org.au/taxonomy/term/466 More to come, please forward to all interested... * 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 Or join the Links Facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10865397643 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
[Marxism] What's new at Links: Thailand, US nukes, Bolivia climate summit, coal protest, Palestine, Sudan, S. Africa, Venezuela, Pakistan, capitalism food
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == What's new at Links: Thailand, US nukes, Bolivia climate summit, coal protest, Palestine, Sudan, S. Africa, Venezuela, Pakistan, capitalism food * * * 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 or on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10865397643 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. * * * Can capitalism fix climate change? http://links.org.au/node/1630 By *Simon Butler* April 14, 2010 -- Albert Einstein defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. It has taken capitalism about 250 years to generate enough waste and pollution to press dangerously against nature's limits. With such a damning record, there should be no grounds to expect a different outcome in the future. Yet the mainstream discussion about how to tackle the climate crisis still assumes that, this time around, capitalism can be made sustainable. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1630 Obama's double talk at nuclear summit: US preserves and extends its nuclear domination http://links.org.au/node/1622 By the *International Socialist Organization*, United States April 14, 2010 -- The US has repackaged its strategy -- but the terrible threat of nuclear war remains. The administration of US President Barack Obama is out to upgrade the US nuclear arsenal and pressure world leaders into imposing sanctions against countries -- like Iran -- that allegedly harbour ambitions to develop nukes of their own. That's the agenda behind the April 12-13 Washington summit on nuclear security, which followed the announcement of a supposedly less belligerent US nuclear strategy and the signing in Prague of the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) with Russia. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1622 Bolivia: Ambassador Pablo Solon on why thousands will attend World People's Climate Summit http://links.org.au/node/1619 April 11, 2010 -- More than 10,000 individuals and 50 governments have already registered to participate in the historic World People's Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth in Cochabamba, Bolivia, on April 19-22, 2010. *Pablo Solon*, Bolivia's ambassador to the UN, at a press conference during UNFCCC negotiations in Bonn on April 10 condemned continued attempts by some developed countries to impose a deeply flawed Copenhagen Accord as the basis for future negotiations. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1619 Photo essay: `Stop the coal rush!' -- people's blockade halts exports from world's biggest coal port http://links.org.au/node/1628 Photo essay and story by *Jagath Dheerasekara* March 28, 2010 -- Newcastle, Australia -- A mass community protest at the biggest coal port in the world, Newcastle, succeeded in preventing coal ship movements all day. Hundreds of peaceful protesters occupied the harbour from 10 am. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1628 What kind of Palestinian state in 2011? http://links.org.au/node/1627 By *Rafeef Ziadah* April 12, 2010 -- In December 2007, the Palestinian National Authority (PA), in close consultation with donor states and institutions like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank, proposed the Palestinian Reform and Development Plan (PRDP), a program based on rebuilding the Palestinian national institutions and developing the Palestinian public and private sectors. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1627 Sudan: US backs election farce http://links.org.au/node/1625 By *Kerryn Williams* April 15, 2010 -- Hailed as the first competitive, open, multi-party elections in Sudan in 24 years, there was little free, fair or open about the national poll that began on April 11, boycotted by the major opposition parties. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1625 Malaysia: Solidarity protest with Thai people's movement for democracy http://links.org.au/node/1623 April 14, 2010 -- Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia -- Today, a delegation of 30 people led by the *Socialist Party Malaysia* (PSM) staged a protest at the Royal Thai Embassy in Kuala Lumpur. Those present included Dr. Nasir Hashim (chairperson of the PSM and Selangor state assemblyperson for Kota Damansara ), Dr Jeyakumar Devaraj (central committe member of PSM and federal member of parliament for Sungai Siput), and S. Arutchelvan (secretary-general of the PSM). There
[Marxism] Sudan: US backs election farce | Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == By *Kerryn Williams* April 15, 2010 -- Hailed as the first “competitive”, “open”, “multi-party” elections in Sudan in 24 years, there was little free, fair or open about the national poll that began on April 11, boycotted by the major opposition parties. The holding of democratic elections was a key component of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) that ended a two-decade civil war between the Sudanese government in Khartoum — ruled by the National Congress Party (NCP, formerly the National Islamic Front) since it took power in a 1989 miliary coup — and the South Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A). /Al Midan/ reported that on April 12, opposition spokesperson Farooq Abu Issa told a media conference at the Sudanese Communist Party (SCP) headquarters in Khartoum that the elections had become little more than “silly games”. He said opposition warnings that the elections would be fraudulent had been ignored and described the poll as a “crime against Sudan and its people” that would not help establish democracy. He said the involvement of US officials — who have defended the legitimacy of the elections — in Sudan’s domestic affairs was unacceptable. Sudanese Communist Party representative Siddiq Yusuf said the NCP had used its majority in the government to prevent reforms to democratise the electoral process, instead pushing through its harsh security measures and other undemocratic legislation. Umma Party spokesperson Mariam al Mahdi called for the elections to be annulled. Full article at http://links.org.au/node/1625 * 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 Or join the Links Facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10865397643 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
[Marxism] What's new at Links: Thailand, B olivia, N-power, Greens, Philippines, Chicka Dix on, Canada, COSATU on Terre’Blanche, Québec, Oscar Romero, climate
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == What's new at Links: Thailand, Bolivia, N-power, Greens, Philippines, Chicka Dixon, Canada, COSATU on Terre’Blanche, Québec, Oscar Romero, climate * * * 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 or on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10865397643 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. * * * Thailand: Asia-Pacific left statement -- `Resolve crisis through democracy, not crackdown!' http://links.org.au/node/1613 By *Socialist Party of Malaysia* (PSM), *Working People's Association* (PRP) of Indonesia, *People’s Democratic Party* (PRD) of Indonesia, *Turn Left Thailand*, *Partido Lakas ng Masa* (PLM) of the Philippines*, Socialist Alliance* of Australia, *Solidarity* (Australia) April 10, 2010 -- We are deeply concerned over the current situation in Thailand where military-backed Prime Minister Ahbisit Vejjajiva has declared a state of emergency and started a bloody crackdown amidst escalating protests calling for a fresh election. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1613 Bolivia: Bittersweet victory highlights obstacles for process of change http://links.org.au/node/1611 By *Federico Fuentes*, Caracas April 10, 2010 Although final figures will not be known until April 24, the results of Bolivia's April 4 regional elections have ratified the continued advance of the democratic and cultural revolution led by the country's first Indigenous president, Evo Morales. However, it also highlights some of the shortcomings and obstacles the process of change faces. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1611 (Updated April 11) Thailand: Tyrants shoot the people to cling to power; Time for immediate fresh elections http://links.org.au/node/1610 *STOP PRESS -- April 10, 2010* By *Giles Ji Ungpakorn* Soldiers armed with live and rubber bullets and CS gas have attacked the peaceful pro-democracy Red Shirts at various spots in the centre of Bangkok. At least 15 people, Red Shirts and one Japanese Reuters reporter, have been shot dead by armed troops using automatic weapons, and tanks [were used] against peaceful pro-democracy demonstrators. Hundreds more people have been injured. The military-backed government of Abhisit Vejjajiva has blood on its hands and should resign immediately. Some soldiers have been taken prisoner and weapons seized. Red Shirts outside Bangkok have seized many provincial headquarters. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1610 Why James Hansen is wrong on nuclear power http://links.org.au/node/1607 By *Renfrey Clarke* April 8, 2010 -- “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” Attributed to economist J.M. Keynes, that retort has always been good advice. Now that carrying on with “business as usual” greenhouse gas emissions has been revealed as a road to disaster, should environmentalists change their minds on nuclear power? * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1607 The Australian Greens: mainstream party or minor irritant? http://links.org.au/node/1612 The following speech was delivered as the 10th Annual Juanita Nielsen Lecture, on March 23, 2010. Sylvia Hale is a Greens member of the NSW state parliament, elected to the Legislative Council (upper house) in 2003. Juanita Nielsen was a campaigner against the big business development of Kings Cross, Sydney, who disappeared in 1975, and widely suspected of having been kidnapped and murdered by crime figures associated with property developers. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1612 Philippines: Ric Reyes for Pasig mayor -- a model electoral campaign for the left http://links.org.au/node/1609 / /By *Reihana Mohideen* April 7, 2010 -- Ric Reyes' campaign for mayor of the city Pasig was formally launched at a 5000-strong local rally on March 26. The march, the biggest to be held in that city for many years, snaked its way on a long march through the working-class sections of Pasig. Ric Reyes' campaign is a model campaign for the left – an example of how to conduct a united, principled and effective electoral intervention. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1609 The thoughts of `Chairman' Chicka Dixon; `The Fox has the last laugh http://links.org.au/node/1608 */I believe every woman of this planet is my sister. I believe every man on this planet is my brother. Like all Kooris [Indigenous people] I know
[Marxism] Thailand: Tyrants shoot the people to cling to power | Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == STOP PRESS -- April 10, 2010 By *Giles Ji Ungpakorn* Soldiers armed with live and rubber bullets and CS gas are attacking the peaceful pro-democracy Red Shirts at various spots in the centre of Bangkok. The gang of royalist tyrants -- Abhisit Vejjajiva’s Democrat Party, the military, the royal palace and the bureaucratic elites -- can only cling to power through violence and lies. As they use armed troops and tanks against pro-democracy demonstrators in Bangkok for the fifth time in 40 years, the tyrants hope that a blanket of censorship throughout Thailand will allow them to do their dirty work in secret. But their censorship is not working and the assembled masses of pro-democracy Red Shirts are resisting. The Red Shirts want democracy and want immediate elections, but democracy and elections are the last things that the tyrants want. They have lorded it over the people for years. They have never won an election and they have never been happy with respecting election results. They are supported in their bloody work by the fascist Yellow Shirted PAD, most middle-class academics and the self-appointed NGO leaders. Together they are contemptuous and fearful of ordinary working people, the poor, the farmers, the citizens. Hovering over the repression and exploitation of the people, like a mean and nasty dark cloud, is the king and his network of toadies. Ever since coming to the throne, king has served the army and the elites well, giving them a legitimacy based on superstition, hierarchy and grovelling. The people have risen up against the tyrants. The “refined” mask of Eton and Oxford educated Abhisit Vejjajiva has slipped off to reveal just another tin-pot dictator. It is time to clear away all the gangsters and parasites who have held sway over Thai society for too long. Down with the military! Down with the monarchy! Down with the dictatorship! Power to working people! http://links.org.au/node/1610 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
[Marxism] Thailand: Asia-Pacific left statement -- `Resolve crisis through democracy, not crackdown!' | Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://links.org.au/node/1613 By *Socialist Party of Malaysia* (PSM), *Working People's Association* (PRP) of Indonesia, *People’s Democratic Party* (PRD) of Indonesia, *Turn Left Thailand*, *Socialist Alliance* of Australia April 10, 2010 -- We are deeply concerned over the current situation in Thailand where military-backed Prime Minister Ahbisit Vejjajiva has declared a state of emergency and started a bloody crackdown amidst escalating protests calling for a fresh election. The situation is worrying as the Thai government has closed down all opposition media and given sweeping new powers to the security forces to prepare for a violent crackdown on the Red Shirt protesters. Thai troops are using excessive force including tanks and live ammunition, against pro-democracy demonstrators in Bangkok. The United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship (UDD), or better known as the Red Shirts, has relaunched massive protests against the military-installed, unelected Ahbisit government since last March. This pro-democracy movement is comprised of rural and urban poor, who are standing up against the military-backed, oligarchic rule. The current crisis unfolded in September 2006, when the military staged a coup against the government of Thaksin Shinawatra, scrapped the 1997 popular constitution and replaced it with a military-sanctioned constitution. The royalist Yellow Shirts started to organise fascistic demonstrations when the pro-Thaksin party won in the 2007 election. The current Ahbisit government was installed by the military after the fascistic mobilisations by the Yellow Shirts and a coup by the court. The government, the army and the Yellow Shirts are afraid to face real democratic elections, as they know that they would lose since the majority of the poor support the Red Shirts. Ahbisit and the ruling elite are refusing the call for elections and are trying to buy time and even preparing for a violent crackdown. It is becoming clear that Ahbisit and the old elite are bringing the country towards a fascist dictatorship. Thailand has entered a new phase of class war. The old ruling elite with the backing of the military are using all means to scrap democracy in Thailand. The pro-democracy Red Shirts comprised of the majority of the working class, peasantry and poor, have shown their real popularity and mobilising strength which has definitely shaken the royalists and the military. With the broadening of the masses’ support for the Red Shirts, it could be a new and important step in the struggle of the ordinary people in Thailand for the restoration of democracy and social justice. *We call for:* the immediate resignation of the military-installed Ahbisit government and the holding of fresh democratic elections; * a halt to all forms of violent crackdown against Red Shirt protesters. Respect the right of the people to organise, to protest and to strike; * a halt to the suppression of democratic rights and clampdown on the media; * the Thai government to not resort to any military coup. The current crisis in Thailand only can be resolved through genuine democracy and people’s power. We extend our support and solidarity to all workers, peasants and poor in Thailand who are struggling against the anti-democratic government and for the restoration of real democracy. 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
[Marxism] What's new at Links: left unity, Marta Harnecker, Chicka Dixon, S. Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Easter Rising, Indonesia, climate change, FI on VI
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == What's new at Links: left unity, Marta Harnecker, Chicka Dixon, S. Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Easter Rising, Indonesia, climate change, FI on VI * * * 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 or on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10865397643 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. * * * 'Socialism of the 21st century' and left unity http://links.org.au/node/1600 By the *Socialist Alliance*, Australia [The following is the text of a leaflet being distributed by the Socialist Alliance in Melbourne.] April 2, 2010 -- The triumphalism spouted by capitalist apologists in the early 1990s with the collapse of the Soviet Union has long gone. Today the problems are so obvious: global warming and the world economic slump are shaking the capitalist world and casting a growing shadow over the future. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1600 Marta Harnecker: `Socialism is a search for a fully democratic society' http://links.org.au/node/1599 *Marta Harnecker* interviewed by *Edwin Herrera Salinas*,* *for the Bolivian newspaper /La Razón/. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1599 Australia: Freedom fighter Chicka Dixon departs, his activist spirit lives on http://links.org.au/node/1595 By *Peter Boyle*, Sydney March 31, 2010 -- Indigenous and trade union activist Chicka The Fox Dixon (1928-2010) was farewelled by more than a thousand people in a state funeral in Sydney Town Hall today. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1595 Conference of the Democratic Left: Unite to make another South Africa and world possible! http://links.org.au/node/1601 The following call was issued by the Conference of the Democratic Left, a left unity project in South Africa. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1601 Ireland: The 1916 Easter Rising -- striking a blow against an insane system http://links.org.au/node/1598 By *Stuart Munckton* April 2, 2010 -- Easter is here again -- the anniversay of the Irish rebellion against British rule in Easter 1916. Over Easter week, Irish rebels took control of key parts of Dublin and declared a republic. It took seven days for the British to put the rising down. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1598 Download Daniel Bensaïd's `Revolutionary Strategy Today' http://links.org.au/node/1597 By *Liam Mac Uaid * March 31, 2010 -- The International Institute for Research and Education (IIRE) is an Amsterdam-based centre providing activists and scholars around the world with opportunities for research and education. It is offering a free download of the late Daniel Bensaïd's /Revolutionary Strategy Today/. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1597 Indonesia: Working People's Association's (PRP) goal is a new workers' party http://links.org.au/node/1596 March 31, 2010 -- Socialist Alliance national convenor *Peter Boyle* interviews *Ignatius Mahendra Kusumawardhana*, the international relations officer for the Working People's Association (Perhimpunian Rakyat Pekerja -- PRP) of Indonesia, who was in Australia to speak at Socialist Alternative's Marxism 2010 conference in Melbourne, April 2-5, 2010*.* * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1596 Namibia: Reflections on 20 years after independence http://links.org.au/node/1594 By *Jade McClune, *Windhoek March 23, 2010 -- Twenty years ago, at Namibia's first independence celebrations on March 21, 1990, many people would have shared the hopes and the euphoria of the moment. People thought that something good would come to us if we kept our peace and relinquished all the power to the few who knew. Now that terrible hangover is wearing off and time has enforced a certain sobriety on us: the brutish reality of a rapidly falling life expectancy, unprecedented epidemic crises, poverty, vast malnutrition, a ruined education system and chronic mass unemployment, is inescapable. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1594 After Copenhagen: Can we save the world? Video: Is the climate sick of us http://links.org.au/node/1593 *Ian Angus*, editor of /Climate and Capitalism/, gave the talk below in Lisbon, Portugal, on March 26, 2010, at the /O Clima Farto de Nós?/ (Is the climate sick of us?) gathering, a conference organised by the Left Bloc of Portugal and the European Left. * Read more http://links.org.au/node/1593
[Marxism] ANC repays Zim people for their solidarity during apartheid
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == *Title: * South Africa: Army to be redeployed along border *Author: * Correspondent *Category: * Zimbabwe *Date: * 4/2/2010 *Source: * Daily News *Source Website: * thedailynewszw.com http://www.africafiles.org/database/thedailynewszw.com *African Charter Article# 23: * All peoples shall have the right to national and international peace and security. ** *SA army to be redeployed along border* http://www.thedailynewszw.com/?p=28559 South Defence and Military Veterans ministry on Thursday said soldiers will be redeployed to assist law enforcement agencies in patrolling the borders of Zimbabwe, Botswana and Mozambique to control border jumpers from Zimbabwe. The /SA National Defence Force/ is deploying from different bases across the country and troops have been mobilised and are currently being briefed and prepared for the journey back to the border from April 12, 2010, Minister Lindiwe Sisulu said. Although the South African government relaxed its immigration laws on Zimbabweans by scrapping the visa requirements just after the formation of a coalition government, Zimbabweans are finding it very difficult to renew or obtain new passports because of the scarcity of American dollars used as legal tender in the country. Since a decade ago thousands of Zimbabweans cross the border into South Africa daily fleeing economic hardship, political turmoil and a critical lack of access to health care in their homeland. We are ready for the task. The SANDF is deploying on the borders of /South Africa and Botswana, Zimbabwe/ and /Mozambique/, Sisulu said. According to South African human rights organization /Solidarity Peace Trust/ (SPT) Johannesburg has been subjected to a clean-up campaign ahead of the World Cup, which South Africa will host from June 11 to July 11 and the main target being Zimbabweans living at the Central Methodist Church and cross border traders. Fears are growing here that thousands of Zimbabweans will jump borders coming to South Africa during the 2010 world Cup smuggling commodities for cross border trading. In a ministerial statement issued Thursday Sisulu was satisfied with the process of redeploying the troops following a briefing by SANDF chief General Godfrey Ngwenya, the ministry said. SPT on Wednesday released a report saying Zimbabweans in South Africa were being targeted by a clean-up ahead of the football World Cup in South Africa. The report estimates there are one million Zimbabweans living in South Africa. Following a briefing by the chief of the SANDF, the minister of defence and military veterans is satisfied with the process being implemented to redeploy the SANDF to support other law enforcement agencies currently patrolling and managing South African borders. The ministry said advance technical teams consisting of engineers, communication experts and logistics were currently on the borders, finalising the establishment of headquarters and all other necessary infrastructure for the full return of soldiers. Sisulu said initially the SANDF will support and complement other law enforcement agencies on the borders. She said that over time more soldiers would patrol the borders, allowing members of the /South African Police Service/ to be deployed to other areas. We are going back to the border under the /South African Border Management Agency/ that was approved by Cabinet, Sisulu said. 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
[Marxism] Conference of the Democratic Left: Unite to make another South Africa and world possible! | Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == The following call was issued by the Conference of the Democratic Left, a left unity project in South Africa. Full document at http://links.org.au/node/1601 * 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 Or join the Links Facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10865397643 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
