Thailand: Challenges facing the Red Shirt movement today
On November 19, 2010, thousands of Red Shirts remembered those killed six months earlier. Photo by Lee Yu Kyung.
[Read more about the democracy struggle in Thailand HERE.]
By Giles Ji Ungpakorn
December 1, 2010 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- As we approach the end of 2010, the pro-democracy movement, the Red Shirts, is at a crossroads. On the other side, the military junta and the royalists have not even begun to solve the political crisis or to stabilise their power. Since the royalist PAD protests and the military coup in 2006, the junta and the royalists have not only destroyed democracy, they have also destroyed the legitimacy of the monarchy, the military and the judiciary in the eyes of millions of Thais.
Samir Amin: Global currency wars, US imperialism and the global South
November 25, 2010 -- Pambazuka News -- Marxist economist Samir Amin speaks to Pambazuka's Firoze Manji on the misleading rhetoric over the so-called currency war. The real problem, he argues, is the disequilibrium in the global integrated monetary and financial system, in which the US insists on the right to control its currency, but denies the same rights to others, such as China. The countries of the global South need to leave the US and its allies to sort out their own problems and concentrate on developing regional currencies and exercising strict control over capital flows, Amin argues.
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The state, social movements and revolution in Latin America
By Federico Fuentes
November 28, 2010 -- Green Left Weekly -- It should come as no surprise that Latin America, a region converted into a laboratory for ongoing experiments in social change, has increasingly become the topic of discussion and debate among the broader left.
Latin America has not only dealt blows to imperialism but also raised the banner of socialism on a global scale. It is of strategic importance for those fighting for a better world, especially at a time when capitalism is in systemic crisis.
Latin America’s landscape of powerful social movements, left governments of various shades, revolutionary insurrections, and growing expressions of indigenous resistance and worker control, provides a perfect scenario for leftists to learn about, and debate, revolutionary strategy and tactics.
This should not simply be an academic debate. It should look at how to best build solidarity with these movements for change and gain insight for struggles at home.
Of late, burning dispute has opened up, mostly among those writing from an anti-capitalist orientation: a debate over the complex relationship, or “dance” as Ben Dangl calls it, between social movements and states in Latin America.
(Updated Nov. 29) Cancun climate summit should not be `Copenhagen Accord Part II', says Bolivia
Statement by the Plurinational State of Bolivia
Sombat Boonngamangong (left), the leader of the Red Sunday group and long-time activist, has renewed the Red Shirts' campaign in public, such as this "red aerobics". Photo by Lee Yu Kyung.
By Lee Yu Kyung, Bangkok
Why calls for a ban on the wearing of the burqa help the racists
Pip Hinman addresses the meeting on November 24, 2010.
By Pip Hinman
Australia: A community says no to racist burqa bans
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.
One of the favourite tactics of these anti-Muslim hate campaigners is to push laws banning the burqa, the fully veiled dress style used by a tiny minority of Muslim women. In Australia, the ultra-conservative Reverend Fred Nile, leader of the Christian Democratic Party and a member of the NSW Legislative Council, and Liberal senator Cori Bernardi from South Australia, have unsuccessfully tried to move private member's bills to ban the burqa.
Battlelines drawn for Cancun climate summit: `Nature has no price!'
Protesters in Newcastle,Australia, December 20, 2009. Photo by Rising Tide.
By Simon Butler
November 22, 2010 -- Green Left Weekly -- 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.
Few Western politicians want a repeat of last year’s Copenhagen climate conference. They consider it a public relations disaster.
In the lead-up to Copenhagen, public expectations were high. There was a widespread feeling that politicians could no longer ignore the warnings from climate scientists. Many politicians said they agreed strong, decisive action to curb emissions was needed.
But when the big polluting countries blocked a new legally binding treaty at Copenhagen, they were badly exposed.
The left cannot ignore China’s achievements, but neither can it be too celebratory
Rural poverty in China is much higher than urban poverty.
By Michael Karadjis
November 23, 2010 -- Irish Republican News -- 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.
On November 21, the Taoiseach [Prime Minister] Brian Cowen and minister for finance Brian Lenihan, after a week of shocking lies and deceit, said they were accepting the IMF/EU bailout. It later emerged that the G7, comprising the seven most powerful countries in the world, had met to give its approval to the deal.