Two resolutions were adopted on the Arab revolutions which are below. The general perspectives text will be published shortly.
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Britain
Review: 'From Fatwa to Jihad: The Rushdie Affair and its Legacy'
By Rupen Savoulian
Scotland: Why the left should back independence
By Alan McCombes
May 19, 2011 -- Scottish Socialist Party -- More than 150 years ago, Karl Marx and Frederick Engels called on the working
class of all countries to unite and fight for a socialist world.
At a time when there were no telephones, no cars, no aeroplanes, no TV and no radio, their internationalist vision represented an extraordinary feat of historical imagination.
In today’s world of the internet, satellite TV, high-speed air
travel, global capitalism and the World Social Forum, the philosophy of
socialist internationalism no longer looks like a utopian flight of
fantasy.
But what does socialist internationalism mean in practice?
“Imagine there’s no countries, I wonder if you can; nothing to
kill or die for, a brotherhood of man”, sang John Lennon in his
celebrated radical anthem.
R. Palme Dutt's 'Fascism and social revolution'
By Graham Milner
In the present situation in the world, with the intermittent resurgence of fascist and neo-fascist movements in some countries, an avowedly Marxist treatment of the subject of fascism, such as Palme Dutt's Fascism and Social Revolution, deserves the attention of new generations of readers.
Rajani Palme Dutt (1896-1974) was born in England of an Indian father and a Swedish mother.[1] He grew up in a political household, where socialism and Indian independence were familiar subjects of discussion. A brilliant scholar at Oxford University (he took a double first), Dutt was a conscientious objector during the World War I, and was expelled from university in 1917 for disseminating Marxist propaganda.
Scotland: Political climate changes utterly; Voters bring break up of Britain closer?
Scottish National Party leader Alex Salmond.
By Colin Fox, Scottish Socialist Party spokesperson
May 10, 2011 -- As landslides go the 2011 Holyrood election was huge. Scotland has been shaken to its political foundations as voters again voiced their contempt for the Conservative Party [Tories], its coalition partner the Liberal Democratic Party [Lib Dems], and also the Labour Party. The Scotsman newspaper described the result of the May 5 Scottish election as a "victory of hitherto unthinkable proportions" for the Scottish National Party (SNP). Even The Scotsman can be right some of the time!
Britain: Socialist Resistance adopts resolutions on Arab revolutions
April 5, 2011 -- Socialist Resistance -- The British socialist organisation Socialist Resistance held a successful and well-attended national conference over the previous weekend which adopted a comprehensive perspectives text to guide our work over the coming months. The conference also took important debates on the nature of the economic crisis and the debt as well as a session on the impact of the Arab revolutions and the imperialist intervention in Libya.
The European workers' movement: dangers and challenges
In Portugal, November 2010 general strike called by the Communist Party-led CGTP and the
Libya and the London School of Economics: When civil-societyism fronts for barbarism
Gaddafi's son Saif addressing the London School of Economics in 2010.
By Patrick Bond
March 14, 2011 – Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- If Muammar Gaddafi’s wicked son Saif is to be believed, we will soon be witnessing “rivers of blood” in Benghazi to shame even the Middle East’s most murderous tyrants, worse even than Israel’s massacre of 1400 Gaza residents two years ago and its 2006 invasion of Lebanon (although probably shy of the US army’s depopulation of Iraq by what The Lancet medical journal estimated to be a million dead civilians courtesy of oil-crazed Washington’s 2003 invasion).
The regime’s attacks on its citizenry, Saif warned the BBC and Sky News on March 13, will intensify in coming days: “This is our country, we will never, ever give up and we will never, ever surrender. This is our country. We fight here in Libya, we die here in Libya.”
New book reveals the history of rubber: holocausts, environmental destruction and class struggle
The Devil’s Milk: A social history of rubber
By John Tully
Monthly Review Press, 2011
[Order the The Devil’s Milk from Monthly Review Press HERE. John Tully launched the book in Melbourne on February 17, at Readings Books, Carlton (309 Lygon St). He will also launch it in New York City on February 22, 7.30pm, at The Brecht Forum, 451 West Street.]
February 18, 2011 – Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- This new book from Monthly Review Press – by Australian socialist John Tully -- documents the history of rubber and the role it has played in the development of capitalism.
Rubber is an essential industrial material, although underappreciated by most of us, even though we are surrounded by it. Since its industrial uses began to be fully appreciated in the 1800s, the quest for rubber has been, in Tully’s words, “a paradigm of imperialism”.
US warplanes take off from Diego Garcia.
[Read the Mauritian socialists' open letter to Greenpeace -- `Don't help cover up colonialism's crimes on Diego Garcia' HERE, warning the organisation that it is being manipulated by the US and British governments. This has now been confirmed by Wikileaks.]
By Clency Lebrasse
December 17, 2010 -- Rabble.ca -- Six months ago, I wrote a piece for rabble.ca describing the appalling treatment of the people of the Chagos Islands [which includes Diego Garcia] in the Indian Ocean by the British government.
Scotland: Respect votes to split left vote, Galloway opposes independence
On November 13, 2010, the English left-wing organisation Respect’s ann
Britain: Understanding the Green Party
November 2, 2010 -- New Left Project -- Derek Wall is an economics lecturer and writer. He has been a member of the Green Party since 1980 and was Green Party principal speaker from 2006 to 2007. He is a founder of the Ecosocialist International and Green Left [an organised ecosocialist group within the Green Party] and has written widely on green politics. His latest books are The Rise of the Green Left and The No-Nonsense Guide to Green Politics. In this interview, he and Edward Lewis examine the nature and politics of the Green Party from a left perspective.
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What are the origins of the Green Party? What are the circumstances that brought it about?
Ecosocialism 2025
