Rio de Janeiro, June 14, 2012 -- La Via Campesina -- About 3000 people from around the world will mobilise to say NO to the commodification of life and nature at the "Peoples Summit for Social and Environmental Justice and in Defense of the Commons", the parallel opposition activity to the UN Conference on Sustainable Development or Rio+20.
The peoples' summit is a space for discussion, debate and construction of alternative proposals by the global civil society, social movements and peoples collective organisations. La Via Campesina -- the international organisation of small farmers -- has been actively participating in the construction of this activity in order to denounce the false solutions of the same failed economic model that are now being dressed in green under the name “green economy”. La Via Campesina is instead promoting peasants' sustainable agriculture as a true solution to the global climatic and environmental crises.
System or siege? Samuel Farber misses the main cause of Cuba's problems
Cuba since the revolution of 1959: a critical assessment
By Samuel Farber
Haymarket Books, Chicago, 2011
Review by Chris Slee
June 13, 2012 – Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- Samuel Farber was born in Cuba, but moved to the United States in 1958. He is an emeritus professor of political science at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York, and has been involved in the socialist movement for over 50 years. He has written extensively on Cuba, from a point of view highly critical of the Cuban government. His views are promoted by sections of the US left, in particular the International Socialist Organization. While many of his criticisms have some validity, in my view he downplays the achievements of the Cuban revolution, and underestimates the impact of the US blockade in causing the problems and difficulties that Cuba faces.
SYRIZA leader Alexis Tsipras speaks at a rally in Athens' Omonia Square in early May. Photo: Kathemerini.
For more discussion and analysis on the political crisis in Greece, click HERE.
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June 11, 2012 -- Socialist Worker (USA) -- Greece's Coalition of the Radical Left, SYRIZA, has a chance of winning parliamentary elections in Greece on June 17, which would give it an opportunity to form a government of the left that would reject the drastic austerity measures imposed on Greece as a condition of the European Union's bailout of the country's financial elite.
Review: Invaluable history, important lessons from Barry Sheppard
The Party, The Socialist Workers Party 1960-1988, Volume I: The Sixties, a Political Memoir by Barry Sheppard, Resistance Books (Sydney), 2005, 354 pages.
The Party, The Socialist Workers Party 1960-1988, Volume II: Interregnum, Decline and Collapse, 1973-1988, a Political Memoir by Barry Sheppard, Resistance Books (London), 2012, 345 pages.
[For more discussion of the US SWP, click HERE.]
By Malik Miah
Australian socialists: 'No imperialist military intervention in Syria!'
Western military intervention will cause more death and suffering in Syria.
Socialist Alliance (Australia) statement
William D. Haywood—Soldier to the Last, by James P. Cannon (1928)
“William D. Haywood—Soldier to the Last” by James P. Cannon (Daily Worker, May 22, 1928) is a heartfelt obituary of the IWW leader William “Big Bill” Haywood by a friend and comrade, James P. Cannon. Both joined the Communist Party.
Lars Lih: Bolshevism and revolutionary social democracy
Lenin.
By Lars Lih
Socialist Alliance (Australia) poster demanding the release of Baba Jan and his comrades.
Readers of Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal are urged to send protest letters to Pakistan embassies and consulate in their own countries. See an example at the conclusion of this article.
By Pierre Rousset and Danielle Sabai
Quebec student mobilisations: Debate opens on strategic perspectives
By Richard Fidler