August 2, 2008 – Federico Fuentes, Links and Green Left Weekly commentator based in Venezuela, is back in Caracas after a quick speaking tour of Australia.
Malaysia: Socialist assemblyperson for system overhaul; praises example of Venezuelan revolution
From ASAP, August 1, 2008 -- Dr Mohd Nasir Hashim, Socialist Party of Malaysia (PSM) president and state assemblyperson for Kota Damansara in Selangor, expressed his hopes to the Uncensored talk show host Francis Paul Siah on Malaysiakini.tv last week.
"There's so much work to be done'', he exclaims, reiterating his common theme of ``working for the people'' in the 30-minute show. First on his to-do list: "Damage control" and assuaging the economic plight of the poor.
However, while he's ``glad to meet with the ordinary people", Nasir also wants the people to know that he expects them to "jointly work on solutions" with him. "I don't want dependency on me or politics for every want", he said. "Maybe 50% with me, 50% somewhere else."
Serbia: The war criminal Karadzic and Western hypocrisy
By Michael Karadjis
August 2, 2008 (updated October 11, 2008) -- The new Serbian government last month finally cornered Radovan Karadzic, the former leader of the Bosnian Serb Republic (Republika Srpska), one of the two entities which make up Bosnia, during the war in 1992-5 when that statelet was created. Karadzic had been in hiding for many years from the International War Crimes Tribunal in, which in 1995 had indicted him for various war crimes including genocide.
The July 21 arrest led to a wave of hypocrisy in Western capitals, congratulating Serbia on the arrest of the vile criminal. Yet for the last seven years in Afghanistan and five years in Iraq, well upwards of a million people have been killed as a result of the US invasion and occupation of these countries. Whole countries are being destroyed; yet not only do these war crimes of climactic scale go unpunished, but these leading war criminals then see themselves as having the right to designate who is a war criminal.
Cooling a fevered planet: economics, policy and vision for fighting global warming
By Gar Lipow
July 1 2008 -- Nobody, except for a small lunatic fringe, still disputes that human-caused climate chaos endangers all of us. Further, most serious scientific and technical groups that have looked at the question have concluded that we have the technological capability today to replace greenhouse gas emitting fossil fuels with efficiency improvements and clean energy — usually at a maximum cost of around the current worldwide military budget, probably much less. The question therefore is: what's stopping us?
To answer that we need to look at the causes of global warming — not the physical causes, but the economic and political flaws in our system that have prevented solutions from being implemented long after the problem was known.
Venezuela’s new assertiveness has brought it to the centre of international controversy: to some it has been stolen by populist dictator, while for others, it is the centre of a continent-wide democratic revolution.
Download now! Links Dossier #3: Michael Lebowitz on Socialism for the 21st Century
A selection of thought-provoking articles by Michael A. Lebowitz from Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal.
The Scottish Socialist Party: the biggest small party
By Richie Venton
July 26, 2008 -- What a phenomenal result in the July 24 Glasgow East by-election on two parallel levels: the earth-shattering defeat of the Labour Party in Red Clydesider John Wheatley’s seat, Labour’s third-safest seat in Scotland, held by them since 1922; and the tremendous achievement for the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) in winning fifth place, the highest position for any of the smaller parties, despite all the apparently insurmountable obstacles we faced.
If we compare the votes with those of the 2005 Westminster election in the identical Glasgow East seat, Labour has gone into freefall from 18,775 to 10,912; the Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP) rocketed from 5268 to 11,277 -- in a turnout down from 48.2% in 2005 to 42.1% this time.
Socialist Alternative gets the balance wrong on propaganda and action
Reviewed by Ben Courtice
From Little Things Big Things Grow: strategies for building revolutionary socialist organisations, by Mick Armstrong, Socialist Alternative, 2007.
Sudanese Communist Party on ICC's request to indict Sudan President Omar Hassan al-Bashir
Statement of the Sudanese Communist Party
Khartoum, July 20, 2008 -- The inclusion of the name of the President of the Republic of the Sudan among those wanted for justice by the International Criminal Court increases the complications engulfing the crisis prevailing in the Sudan. Despite the fact that such procedures were already in place and expected since the establishment of the Court, and this last step of naming the President of the Sudan was preceded by a similar step indicting two prominent figures in the government in February 2007, the Government of the Sudan was ill-prepared both legally and politically to react to either attempts.
If socialism fails: the spectre of 21st century barbarism
July 27, 2008 -- From the first day it appeared online, Climate and Capitalism’s masthead has carried the slogan “Ecosocialism or Barbarism: there is no third way.” We’ve been quite clear that ecosocialism is not a new theory or brand of socialism — it is socialism with Marx’s important insights on ecology restored, socialism committed to the fight against ecological destruction. But why do we say that the alternative to ecosocialism is barbarism?
Marxists have used the word “barbarism” in various ways, but most often to describe actions or social conditions that are grossly inhumane, brutal, and violent. It is not a word we use lightly, because it implies not just bad behaviour but violations of the most important norms of human solidarity and civilised life. [1]
The slogan “Socialism or Barbarism” originated with the great German revolutionary socialist leader Rosa Luxemburg, who repeatedly raised it during World War I. It was a profound concept, one that has become ever more relevant as the years have passed.