====================================================================== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. ======================================================================
What's new at Links: HRW & Cuba, Olympics, NT Indigenous struggle, Lars T. Lin on Lenin, Malaysia, Pakistan, Thailand, NZ, Burma, WSF or 5th International? * * * Subscribe free to Links - International Journal of Socialist Renewal - at http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=343373 You can also follow Links on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LinksSocialism Visit and bookmark http://links.org.au and add it to your RSS feed (http://links.org.au/rss.xml). If you would like us to consider an article, please send it to li...@dsp.org.au *Please pass on to anybody you think will be interested in Links. * * * How credible is Human Rights Watch on Cuba? <http://links.org.au/node/1506> By *Tim Anderson * February 11, 2010 -- In late 2009 the New York-based group Human Rights Watch published a report titled /New Castro Same Cuba/. Based on the testimony of former prisoners, the report systematically condemns the Cuban government as an "abusive" regime that uses its "repressive machinery ... draconian laws and sham trials to incarcerate scores more who have dared to exercise their fundamental freedoms". So how credible is this scathing report on Cuba? And who does Human Rights Watch represent? * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1506> Vancouver Winter Olympics: A festival of corporate greed <http://links.org.au/node/1501> By *Roger Annis* Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada -- On February 12, 2010, the corporate sporting behemoth known as the 21st Winter Olympic Games opened to great fanfare here. In a time of economic hardship and government cuts to social programs across Canada, huge sums of public money have been spent to stage this /uber/ spectacle. * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1501> Australia: Trade union solidarity with NT Aboriginal struggle <http://links.org.au/node/1511> By *Emma Murphy*, Ampilatwatja, Northern Territory February 12, 2010 -- From February 1-14, in a remote part of Australia's Northern Territory (NT), a group of trade unionists and Aboriginal rights activists from Victoria, New South Wales and the NT joined forces with the Alyawarr people from Ampilatwatja community to help make history. Many people around Australia have already been inspired by the Alyawarr people's walk-off. On July 14, 2009, following a great tradition from Aboriginal struggles of the past century, they walked off their community and set up a protest camp. * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1511> Lars T. Lih's contribution to a Leninism for the 21st century <http://links.org.au/node/1510> */Lenin Rediscovered: /What Is To Be Done?/ In Context/* By Lars T. Lih, Haymarket Books, Chicago 2008, 840 pages Review by *Barry Healy* If a spectre haunted 19th century Europe, as Marx said of the embryonic communist movement, then the name of Lenin was no ghost for the 20th century bourgeoisie, it was a terrifying reality. For the capitalists, with Leninism the communist phantom came howling out of the underworld, beginning with the 1917 Russian Revolution, sweeping whole continents clean of capitalist rule. * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1510> Malaysia: Two-party system -- and a 'third force'? <http://links.org.au/node/1509> By *Jeyakumar Devaraj* February 11, 2010 -- Malaysia has only known one ruling coalition in the past 52 years since independence. But the result of the March 2008 election has led to rising hope among many Malaysians that an enormous change might be around the corner -- a two-party system under which the people are free to choose between two coalitions, which are both capable of governing the country. The purpose of this paper is to locate the institution of a two-coalition system against a wider historical perspective. * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1509> Burma: Regional left support for workers' struggle <http://links.org.au/node/1508> February 13, 2010 -- The statement below has been signed by the Working People's Association (Indonesia); Confederation Congress of Indonesia Union Alliance; the Singapore Democratic Party; the Socialist Party of Malaysia; Socialist Alternative (Australia); Socialist Alliance (Australia); Socialist Worker New Zealand; Young Democrats (Singapore); Partido ng Manggangawa (Philippines); Congress of South African Trade Unions; Partido Lakas ng Masa (Philippines). * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1508> Beyond the World Social Forum ... the Fifth International <http://links.org.au/node/1507> *Eric Toussaint* interviewed by *Igor Ojeda* for the Brazilian weekly paper /Brasil de Fato./*/ /*Translated from French by *Judith Harris* and *Christine Pagnoulle*. February 2010 -- According to Eric Toussaint, a doctor in political science and one of the ideologists of the World Social Forum, now in its tenth edition, effective political action calls for the creation of a permanent national front of parties, social movements and international networks. * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1507> LPP fifth congress: Bravura expression of growing left influence in Pakistan <http://links.org.au/node/1505> By *Farooq Tariq* February 8, 2010 -- The two-day Labour Party Pakistan fifth congress [held on on January 27-28] helped to advance the revolutionary process in Pakistan. It brought together comrades from different traditions and trends to discuss the central topic: "Building a mass working-class party independent of the influence of the capitalists and feudal elements." The congress was a bravura expression of the growing influence and strength of emerging left-wing politics in Pakistan. * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1505> Who is really avoiding justice in Thailand? <http://links.org.au/node/1504> By *Giles Ji Ungpakorn* February 6, 2010, is the first anniversary of the day I had to leave Thailand and seek political exile in Britain. I left Thailand because it had become a dictatorship with no regard to international standards of justice, democracy or human rights. I was charged with /lese majeste/ for writing a book which criticised the illegal military coup in 2006. * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1504> New Zealand socialists target bad banks and low wages <http://links.org.au/node/1503> Representatives of New Zealand left organisations attended the Australian Socialist Alliance's recent national conference. In the following interviews, conducted by the Australian socialist newspaper /Green Left Weekly//,/ they explain the political situation in New Zealand and talk about the key campaigns they are involved in. * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1503> New Zealand: What has happened to real wages since1982? <http://links.org.au/node/1502> By *Mike Treen* Official data on wage movements in New Zealand point to a real wage decline of around 25% between 1982 and the mid-1990s that has never been recovered. * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1502> * * * Links seeks to promote the international exchange of information, experience of struggle, theoretical analysis and views of political strategy and tactics within the international left. It is a forum for open and constructive dialogue between active socialists coming from different political traditions. It seeks to bring together those in the international left who are opposed to neoliberal economic and social policies. It aims to promote the renewal of the socialist movement in the wake of the collapse of the bureaucratic model of "actually existing socialism" in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. ATTENTION: Sign up for regular ``what's new'' announcement emails at http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=343373 Follow Links on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LinksSocialism ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
