7.6.05
BESØG MIN ANDEN HJEMMESIDE:
Min personlige og faglige hjemmeside
ARTIKLER I SOCIALISTISK INFORMATION:
Frygten for et »nej« til EU-forfatningen
"I Frankrig er der ved at blive opbygget en dynamik for et venstreorienteret »nej«. Nej-komiteer spreder sig med stor hast." (SI nr. 196, april 2005)
Internationale noter
"Frankrig: Varm vinter. Portugal: Fremgang for venstrefløjen. Norge: Landsmøde i Rød Valgallianse. Skotland: Socialister klar til valget. Thailand: Ny kvindelig arbejderleder" (SI nr. 195, marts 2005)
Min personlige og faglige hjemmeside
ARTIKLER I SOCIALISTISK INFORMATION:
Frygten for et »nej« til EU-forfatningen
"I Frankrig er der ved at blive opbygget en dynamik for et venstreorienteret »nej«. Nej-komiteer spreder sig med stor hast." (SI nr. 196, april 2005)
Internationale noter
"Frankrig: Varm vinter. Portugal: Fremgang for venstrefløjen. Norge: Landsmøde i Rød Valgallianse. Skotland: Socialister klar til valget. Thailand: Ny kvindelig arbejderleder" (SI nr. 195, marts 2005)
9.8.04
SOLIDARITET MED FAGBEVÆGELSEN I IRAK:
Iraq's Labor Upsurge Wins Support from U.S. Unions
"Once the U.S. occupation of Iraq began over a year ago, Iraqi workers lost no time in reorganizing their country's labor movement. Labor activity spread from Baghdad to the Kurdish north, with the center of the storm in the south, in the oil and electrical installations around Basra, and the port of Um Qasr."
Eyewitness: Iraq's new trade unions
"Ewa Jasiewicz spent eight months in Iraq, mainly in Baghdad and Basra, working for Occupation Watch. She worked with the trade union movement in Basra, especially the Southern Oil Company Union. From Basra she used to post regular reports at the anarchist website infoshop, and via other web resources (for example, Voices in the Wilderness), about workers' struggles in Iraq. Clive Bradley talked to her."
Which Side is the ISO on, Working Class Socialism or Nationalism and Islamism?
"We should not measure forces opposed to the US by who picks up a gun and shoots at US soldiers, bombs UN Headquarters, blows up mosques, rams into hotels using cars loaded with explosives, etc. Neither is anyone who opposes Islamic and reactionary terrorist forces necessarily our friends. That bloody fight between two terrorist forces must stop because it has turned Iraq into a hell for Iraqi masses and it is impeding the mass organization of workers, women, and other progressive movements. Both sides of the terrorist confrontation in Iraq can be stopped."
Iraq's Labor Upsurge Wins Support from U.S. Unions
"Once the U.S. occupation of Iraq began over a year ago, Iraqi workers lost no time in reorganizing their country's labor movement. Labor activity spread from Baghdad to the Kurdish north, with the center of the storm in the south, in the oil and electrical installations around Basra, and the port of Um Qasr."
Eyewitness: Iraq's new trade unions
"Ewa Jasiewicz spent eight months in Iraq, mainly in Baghdad and Basra, working for Occupation Watch. She worked with the trade union movement in Basra, especially the Southern Oil Company Union. From Basra she used to post regular reports at the anarchist website infoshop, and via other web resources (for example, Voices in the Wilderness), about workers' struggles in Iraq. Clive Bradley talked to her."
Which Side is the ISO on, Working Class Socialism or Nationalism and Islamism?
"We should not measure forces opposed to the US by who picks up a gun and shoots at US soldiers, bombs UN Headquarters, blows up mosques, rams into hotels using cars loaded with explosives, etc. Neither is anyone who opposes Islamic and reactionary terrorist forces necessarily our friends. That bloody fight between two terrorist forces must stop because it has turned Iraq into a hell for Iraqi masses and it is impeding the mass organization of workers, women, and other progressive movements. Both sides of the terrorist confrontation in Iraq can be stopped."
21.6.04
Aktuelle artikler:
Rule of new torturers in Iraq (News & Letters, juni 2004)
WCPI-interview med Alliance for Workers' Liberty
Is Iraq another Vietnam?
Support Palestine, but challenge homophobia
Alliance for Workers Liberty: Links og artikler om Irak
Rule of new torturers in Iraq (News & Letters, juni 2004)
WCPI-interview med Alliance for Workers' Liberty
Is Iraq another Vietnam?
Support Palestine, but challenge homophobia
Alliance for Workers Liberty: Links og artikler om Irak
18.3.04
Against the terrorists - international working-class solidarity
"The bombing which killed over 200 people at three railway stations in Madrid in the morning rush hour of 11 March was an unspeakable atrocity. Whoever did it is as much an enemy of the working class and democracy as were the Italian fascists who killed 85 people by bombing Bologna railway station in 1980, or the American right-wing terrorists who killed 168 with a bombing in Oklahoma in 1995.
It would be plain stupid for socialists to translate what the bombers do and aim for into our liberationist concerns, and conclude that they were representing Third World people against imperialism. They see themselves as soldiers of God making war on everything in the modern world that socialists, or even liberals, prize and see as a stepping stone to a better world.
The chief targets of al-Qaida and their like are not, in fact, the US or Spanish governments, but ordinary people — including Muslims — in Madrid or New York or Istanbul, and, above all, the ordinary people of Muslim countries, whether religious, not-so-religious, or secular, who reject the evil, life-hostile, death-worshipping, demented bigotry that al-Qaida stands for. (Alliance for Workers' Liberty)"
"The bombing which killed over 200 people at three railway stations in Madrid in the morning rush hour of 11 March was an unspeakable atrocity. Whoever did it is as much an enemy of the working class and democracy as were the Italian fascists who killed 85 people by bombing Bologna railway station in 1980, or the American right-wing terrorists who killed 168 with a bombing in Oklahoma in 1995.
It would be plain stupid for socialists to translate what the bombers do and aim for into our liberationist concerns, and conclude that they were representing Third World people against imperialism. They see themselves as soldiers of God making war on everything in the modern world that socialists, or even liberals, prize and see as a stepping stone to a better world.
The chief targets of al-Qaida and their like are not, in fact, the US or Spanish governments, but ordinary people — including Muslims — in Madrid or New York or Istanbul, and, above all, the ordinary people of Muslim countries, whether religious, not-so-religious, or secular, who reject the evil, life-hostile, death-worshipping, demented bigotry that al-Qaida stands for. (Alliance for Workers' Liberty)"
15.3.04
The Strange Illusion of a "Social Europe"
"For many years now the thinking of the left in Western Europe has been dominated by an enormously optimistic view of the social policy of the European Union. Trade unions and left parties told everyone that we were on our way to a "Social Europe", one in other words which distributed available work fairly; a Europe which would offer security even to workers with little education, to the unemployed, to those who cannot for whatever reason work, to young people just starting out on working life, to mothers with little experience of work outside the home, to pensioners.
The trend is in reality not towards a 'Social Europe' but in entirely the opposite direction. The social and economic model of the Soviet Union and its allies is no longer around to offer the threat of competition and many workers do not bother to participate in European Parliamentary elections. In the EP elections of 1999 the social democrats, who had until then formed the biggest political group, suffered a heavy defeat, losing out to ourselves - the GUE-NGL - and the Greens, but also to the right. The European People's Party, a combination of Christian Democrats and conservatives, is now the biggest group in the EP, and together with other right wing forces forms a majority."
by Erik Meijer
"For many years now the thinking of the left in Western Europe has been dominated by an enormously optimistic view of the social policy of the European Union. Trade unions and left parties told everyone that we were on our way to a "Social Europe", one in other words which distributed available work fairly; a Europe which would offer security even to workers with little education, to the unemployed, to those who cannot for whatever reason work, to young people just starting out on working life, to mothers with little experience of work outside the home, to pensioners.
The trend is in reality not towards a 'Social Europe' but in entirely the opposite direction. The social and economic model of the Soviet Union and its allies is no longer around to offer the threat of competition and many workers do not bother to participate in European Parliamentary elections. In the EP elections of 1999 the social democrats, who had until then formed the biggest political group, suffered a heavy defeat, losing out to ourselves - the GUE-NGL - and the Greens, but also to the right. The European People's Party, a combination of Christian Democrats and conservatives, is now the biggest group in the EP, and together with other right wing forces forms a majority."
by Erik Meijer
15.2.04
IRAQ, THE LEFT AND THE 'RESISTANCE'
David McKnight, writing in the Australian, picks out some differences between the Iraqi left and some sections of the Western left:
"HAVING mobilised the biggest demonstrations seen in a generation against the invasion of Iraq, the Left and anti-war activists now face a dilemma as post-war Iraq unfolds. For multiple reasons many times recounted, the US invasion was wrong and hypocritical. But the invasion cannot be undone. And the reality is that Iraq now has the potential for a democratic future, as well as the potential for regression if the underground terrorist resistance assumes power.
But on this issue the Western Left is divided. Do the bloody actions of the so-called resistance constitute a war of national liberation, making them worthy of left-wing support? Are Saddam Hussein's thugs comparable to the Timorese fighting Indonesian occupation? Or to Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress? Or to the French Resistance against Nazi Germany?"
David McKnight, writing in the Australian, picks out some differences between the Iraqi left and some sections of the Western left:
"HAVING mobilised the biggest demonstrations seen in a generation against the invasion of Iraq, the Left and anti-war activists now face a dilemma as post-war Iraq unfolds. For multiple reasons many times recounted, the US invasion was wrong and hypocritical. But the invasion cannot be undone. And the reality is that Iraq now has the potential for a democratic future, as well as the potential for regression if the underground terrorist resistance assumes power.
But on this issue the Western Left is divided. Do the bloody actions of the so-called resistance constitute a war of national liberation, making them worthy of left-wing support? Are Saddam Hussein's thugs comparable to the Timorese fighting Indonesian occupation? Or to Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress? Or to the French Resistance against Nazi Germany?"
28.1.04
Nyt nummer af News & Letters (Januar-Februar 2004)
Capture of Hussein fails to secure a frayed occupation
Marxism and Black liberation
The Afghan constitution and women
Earthquake exposes fault lines in Iranian society
Capture of Hussein fails to secure a frayed occupation
Marxism and Black liberation
The Afghan constitution and women
Earthquake exposes fault lines in Iranian society
Where can Iranian workers protest against all MPs?
"News about Iran in the Western press has been dominated by the sit-in staged by "reformist" MPs in the Islamic Majles [parliament] who are protesting at the Guardian Council's decision to ban more than 3,000 candidates in next month's elections. Inside Iran very few people are showing much sympathy with the MPs. Women and students are fed up with the lack of political progress after four years of the "reformists" controlling the parliament and the "government". Workers are increasingly angry with MPs who have time and time again passed legislation defending privatisation and casualisation, causing poverty, unemployment and destitution for Iranian workers."
"News about Iran in the Western press has been dominated by the sit-in staged by "reformist" MPs in the Islamic Majles [parliament] who are protesting at the Guardian Council's decision to ban more than 3,000 candidates in next month's elections. Inside Iran very few people are showing much sympathy with the MPs. Women and students are fed up with the lack of political progress after four years of the "reformists" controlling the parliament and the "government". Workers are increasingly angry with MPs who have time and time again passed legislation defending privatisation and casualisation, causing poverty, unemployment and destitution for Iranian workers."
