United States: Left support for Occupy Wall Street
Below are a number of statements issued by left organisations in the United States.
For more on Occupy Wall Street, click HERE.
It is five minutes to dawn and the wind smells like freedom
By Mike Ely, Kasama Project
October 14, 2011 -- Click here for PDF version of this statement -- It is no longer five minutes to midnight. After Arab Spring leaps to Spain, and Greece, and on to New York’s Wall Street, it suddenly feels like five minutes to dawn.
We no longer need assume that there is no time to stop the world going to shit. There is an opening and we are flooding into it.
We are suddenly in a moment that is not marked by exhausted routine protests that speak for no one and speak to no one.
BDS campaign declares: 'Occupy Wall Street not Palestine!'
[For more on the BDS campaign click HERE. For more on Occupy Wall Street, click HERE.]
If a people one day wills to live fate must answer its call
And the night must fade and the chain must break– Abou-Al-kacem El-Chebbi (Tunisia)
We are part of the world’s 99% yearning for freedom, justice and equal rights!
Australian socialists: 'Occupy to put human need before corporate greed'
Statement by Socialist Alliance (Australia)
Download a PDF version of this statement to print and distribute
October 14, 2011 -- Socialist Alliance -- The Occupy Wall Street protest started small. But it has now become a global movement, with occupy events planned in about 1500 cities worldwide.
It’s born out of the recognition that, in country after country, ordinary people are being made to pay for an economic crisis caused by the super-rich. The 99% are being told they must surrender their livelihoods, their future, their security and their dignity to keep a broken system afloat.
In contrast, the 1% are having a wonderful crisis. The world’s biggest corporations have emerged stronger, more profitable and more powerful than ever before.
To add insult to injury, the 1% want to convince us that we, the 99%, are to blame for the crisis. They say our wages are too high and that we don’t work hard enough. They say our social security systems are not affordable and that our rights at work are should be done away with. They say our public education and health systems are not efficient and that our public services must be privatised.
[Are you a participant in an Occupy action in your city or town? Please leave a report in the comments section below.
Arab Spring eyewitness: Reflections on the revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia
[The writer is an Australian Socialist Alliance activist presently in the Middle East.
Malaysia: Charges against socialists discharged, but no acquittal
Once the judge announced his decision, the courtroom erupted to cheers of Hidup Rakyat, Hidup Perjuangan' (Long live the people, long live the fight).
By Susan Loone
October 10, 2011 -- Malaysiakini -- The 24 Socialist Party of Malaysia (Parti Sosialis Malaysia) activists facing charges under the Internal Security Act (ISA) and Societies Act were given a discharge not amounting to an acquittal (DNAA) by a Butterworth sessions court. The decision on six other activists, who were absent today, was put off to October 28.
Those who were absent were Sungai Siput MP Dr Jeyakumar Devaraj, M. Sukumaran, M. Santhana Devi, M. Ravindran, M. Kavitha and S. Thivya Kumar.
Judge Ikmal Hishan Mohd Tajuddin delivered the ruling after deliberating on it for almost two hours
China: 'Smashing the iron rice bowl' -- expropriation of workers and capitalist transformation
"Managers have powerful market-based incentives that their predecessors did not—fines, bonuses and the threat of termination." Graphic by Jon Berkeley.
By Joel Andreas
October 2011 -- China Left Review, #4 -- In debates about whether the economic order that is emerging in China after three decades of market reforms can be called capitalist, the main focus has been about trends in the relative importance of private and state enterprises and the role of the state in the economy. These are important issues, of course, involving fundamental features of capitalism. Much less attention, however, has been given to employment relations.
In this paper, which focuses on the restructuring of urban enterprises beginning in the early 1990s, I argue that the dismantling of the old “work unit” system and the elimination of permanent job tenure have effectively severed ties between labour and the means of production. This has changed not only the nature of employment relations, but the fundamental goals of economic enterprise, establishing the foundations for a capitalist economic order.
Hands over the city: Towards an urban nightmare
By Dave Holmes
[This is an edited version of a workshop talk given on October 2, 2011, at the World at a Crossroads: Climate Change, Social Change conference in Melbourne. For more material from the conference, click HERE. It first appeared at Dave Holmes' Arguing for Socialism and is posted at Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal with permission. See also Are livable cities just a dream? by Dave Holmes.]
I want to give an overview of the crisis of our cities as I see it. The city I focus on is Melbourne, where I live. But I doubt that the broad situation is much different in the other states.
Modern cities are "free-fire" zones for the corporations. And the situation is getting worse. We can't work out what to do without understanding this basic reality.