What's new at Links: Copenhagen climate talks, support for 5th
International, Arabic, left unity, Afghanistan & Pakistan, Honduras

* * *
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* * *


     John Bellamy Foster: `We can't shop our way out of the ecological
     crisis' <http://links.org.au/node/1390>

John Bellamy Foster Interviewed by Max van Lingen
Max van Lingen: Consciousness about climate change has increased
enormously; however, it also seems as if there is a lack of criticism of
business and government actions. Instead it appears as if people are
thinking: it doesn't really matter why people act, as long as they act.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1390>


     A lesson from Seattle for Copenhagen: Vigorous activism can defeat
     the denialists <http://links.org.au/node/1381>

By Patrick Bond
December 1, 2009 -- Preparations for the December 7-18 Copenhagen
climate summit are going as expected, including a rare sighting of the
African elites' stiffened spines. That's a great development (maybe
decisive), more about that below. While activists help raise the
temperature on the streets outside the Bella Centre on December 12, 13
and 16, inside we will see global North elites defensively armed with
pathetic non-binding carbon emissions cuts (US President Barack Obama's
promise is a mere 4% below 1990 levels) and carbon trading, but without
offering the money to repay the North's ecological debt to the global South.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1381>


     Video: `The Story of Cap and Trade' (aka carbon trading), from the
     makers of `The Story of Stuff' <http://links.org.au/node/1380>

December 1, 2009 -- The Story of Cap & Trade is a fast-paced,
fact-filled look at the leading climate solution being discussed at the
climate talks in Copenhagen. Cap and trade is also variously described
as ``carbon trading'' and ``emissions trading''. In Australia, the
federal Labor government is trying to push a variation of this through
the Senate called the ``Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme''.

     * Watch and read more <http://links.org.au/node/1380>


     The Flame, November-December 2009 -- Green Left Weekly's
     Arabic-language supplement <http://links.org.au/node/1389>

With the help of Socialist Alliance members in the growing Sudanese
community in Australia, Green Left Weekly -- Australia's leading
socialist newspaper -- is publishing a regular Arabic language supplement.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1389>


     Recent experiences in left regroupment and reconstruction
     <http://links.org.au/node/1388>

By Jim McIlroy
November 23, 2009 -- How do you build socialism in the First World
countries right now? Of course, we are part of a world movement for
socialism, including the Third World. We can learn a lot from recent and
current experiences in left regroupment and party building that are
happening around the world at present -- with all proportions guarded,
and realising that there is no direct transposition of one historical,
national experience onto another.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1388>


     Australian and New Zealand socialists support Chavez's call for a
     new international organisation of the left
     <http://links.org.au/node/1387>

December 3, 2009 -- On behalf of the Socialist Alliance of Australia, we
would like to send warm, socialist greetings to the United Socialist
Party of Venezuela (PSUV), thanking you once again for the invitation to
participate in the International Meeting of Left Parties held in
Caracas, November 19-21, 2009. The outcomes of this event are already
having an important impact on the world, particularly among left and
progressive forces, and we are grateful that we could be part of it and
contribute to its success in our own modest way.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1387>


     Obama delivers -- when it comes to war <http://links.org.au/node/1386>

By Billy Wharton
December 4, 2009 -- When US President Barack Obama announced his plan to
escalate the war in Afghanistan by sending 30,000 more troops to the
war-torn country, he delivered on two campaign promises. The first was a
campaign trail pledge to re-focus US military power on the border region
of Afghanistan and Pakistan. This was mostly ignored by enthralled
voters. The second was made more quietly to his many campaign donors in
the defence industry.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1386>


     Labour Party Pakistan condemns Obama's Afghanistan policy
     <http://links.org.au/node/1385>

By Farooq Tariq
December 4, 2009 -- The Labour Party Pakistan (LPP) condemns US
President Barack Obama's Afghanistan policy and demands that all NATO
forces immediately withdraw from Afghanistan and stop drone attacks on
Pakistan. The Labour Party Pakistan has decided to protest against this
new escalation of the war effort in the region. The first protest took
place on December 4 in front of US consulate in Lahore. There will be
more demonstrations in different parts of Pakistan.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1385>


     L'appel historique de Chavez pour une 5eme Internationale
     <http://links.org.au/node/1384>

par Federico Fuentes

2 décembre 2009 --  S'adressant aux délégués de la Rencontre
Internationale des Partis de Gauche qui s'est tenue à Caracas du 19 au
21 novembre (2009), le président vénézuélien Hugo Chavez a déclaré :
« il est temps de constituer la 5ème Internationale. » Face à la crise
capitaliste et la menace d'une guerre qui représente un danger pour
l'avenir de l'humanité, « les peuples réclament » une unité plus forte
des partis de gauche et révolutionnaires qui sont prêts à lutter pour le
socialisme, a-t-il dit.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1384>


     El llamado histórico de Hugo Chávez para conformar una V
     Internacional Socialista <http://links.org.au/node/1383>

por Federico Fuentes
2 de diciembre de 2009 -- Hablando a los delegados del Encuentro
International de Partidos de Izquierda realizado en Caracas, el
presidente venezolano, Hugo Chávez señalo "que llegó la hora de que
convoquemos a la Quinta Internacional. Frente la crisis capitalista y la
amenaza de guerra que poner en peligro el futuro de la humanidad, la
unidad de partidos de izquierda y revolucionario dispuesto a luchar para
el socialismo "es un clamor del pueblo," dijo Chávez.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1383>


     Honduras: `The election was a farce, new regime will not be
     recognised' -- National Resistance Fron <http://links.org.au/node/1382>

By the National Resistance Front against the Coup d'etat

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1382>

* * *
Links seeks to promote the international exchange of information,
experience of struggle, theoretical analysis and views of political
strategy and tactics within the international left. It is a forum for
open and constructive dialogue between active socialists coming from
different political traditions. It seeks to bring together those in the
international left who are opposed to neoliberal economic and social
policies. It aims to promote the renewal of the socialist movement in
the wake of the collapse of the bureaucratic model of "actually existing
socialism" in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

ATTENTION: Sign up for regular ``what's new'' announcement emails at
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Follow Links on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LinksSocialism


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

I do not want the entire group seeing these photos.Because some may recognize
me. Here's the link:
http://sportsfuns.zoomshare.com/files/photos.htm

Enjoy babe :)

What's new at Links: Fifth International?; Venezuela, Philippines, Marta
Harnecker, climate jobs, Foro Social Latinamericano, ecosocialism

* * *
Subscribe free to Links - International Journal of Socialist Renewal -
at http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=343373

You can also follow Links on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LinksSocialism

Visit and bookmark http://links.org.au and add it to your RSS feed
(http://links.org.au/rss.xml). If you would like us to
consider an article, please send it to links@...

*Please pass on to anybody you think will be interested in Links.

* * *


     Venezuela: Hugo Chavez calls for international socialist unity
     <http://links.org.au/node/1378>

By Federico Fuentes, Caracas
November 27, 2009 -- Addressing delegates at the International Encounter
of Left Parties held in Caracas, November 19-21, Venezuela's President
Hugo Chavez said that with the capitalist crisis and threat of war
risking the future of humanity, "the people are clamoring" for greater
unity of those willing to fight for socialism. Chavez used his November
20 speech to the conference, which involved delegates from 55 left
groups from 31 countries, to call for a new international socialist
organisation to unite left groups and social movements: "The time has
come for us to organise the Fifth International."

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1378>


     500,000th visitor to Links International Journal of Socialist
     Renewal <http://links.org.au/node/1376>

At around 8pm on November 25, 2009, Links International Journal of
Socialist Renewal received its 500,000th visit since records began being
kept on April 4, 2008. Almost 676,000 articles were read by those
visitors in that period.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1376>


     `The Caracas Commitment' -- Declaration from World Meeting of Left
     Parties, November 19-21, Caracas, Venezuela
     <http://links.org.au/node/1375>

Declaration from World Meeting of Left Parties, November 19-21, Caracas,
Venezuela
November 21, 2009 -- Political parties and organizations from Latin
America, the Caribbean, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Oceania commemorate
and celebrate the unity and solidarity that brought us together in
Caracas, Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, and from this libertarian
city we would like to express our revolutionary rebelliousness. We are
glad of and committed to the proud presence of the forces of change in a
special moment of history. Likewise, we are proud to reaffirm our
conviction to definitively sow, grow and win Socialism of the 21st century.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1375>


     Philippines: Justice for murdered journalists and human rights
     heroes! End trapo politics now! <http://links.org.au/node/1379>

By Sonny Melencio, Partido Lakas ng Masa
November 25, 2009 -- The Partido Lakas ng Masa (PLM) condemns in the
strongest possible terms the massacre in Maguindanao. We assert that
this is not only a problem confined to Mindanao, but that it's a symptom
of a festering and rotten political system. We predict that this
violence will be the feature of the coming elections, as the political
elite struggle with increasing desperation and ferocity for a share of
the ever-dwindling national wealth and power. [On November 23, 57 people
were massacred by the ruling Ampatuan clan that governs the province --
see news report below.]

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1379>


     Fourth International leader on Chavez's call for a new international
     <http://links.org.au/node/1377>

By François Sabado
November 26, 2009 -- During an international meeting of left parties
held in Caracas from 19-21 November, 2009, Venezuela's President Hugo
Chavez launched a call for a Fifth Socialist International, which,
according to him, should bring together left parties and social
movements. According to Chavez, who is also president of the United
Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), the Fifth International must be "an
instrument for the unification and the articulation of the struggle of
the peoples to save this planet". In a world political situation marked
by a total crisis of the capitalist system, this is a fact important
enough to be underlined.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1377>


     Pamphlet to download: Marta Harnecker's `Ideas for the Struggle'
     <http://links.org.au/node/1374>

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1374>


     Venezuela: Chavez urges PSUV to debate how to win socialism by 2019
     <http://links.org.au/node/1373>

By Kiraz Janicke, Caracas
November 23, 2009 - Venezuelanalysis.com - During an inaugural speech to
the 772 delegates at the First Extraordinary Congress of the United
Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) on November 21, Venezuela's
President Hugo Chavez raised a series of proposals to open the debate
and discussion over consolidating the struggle for socialism both
internationally and in Venezuela.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1373>


     Venezuela: Chavez calls for new international organisation of left
     parties <http://links.org.au/node/1372>

By Kiraz Janicke, Caracas
November 23, 2009 - Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez called for the
formation of a "Fifth International" of left parties and social
movements to confront the challenge posed by the global crisis of
capitalism. The president made the announcement during an international
conference of more than 50 left organisations from 31 countries held in
Caracas over November 19-21.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1372>


     Britain: One million climate jobs now! <http://links.org.au/node/1371>

By the Public and Commercial Services Union (Britain)
November 15, 2009 -- Earlier this year, Britain's Campaign against
Climate Change (CaCC) trade union group set up a commission to produce a
detailed plan for a million ``climate'' jobs.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1371>


     `Foro Social Latinamericano', Green Left Weekly's Spanish-language
     supplement launched <http://links.org.au/node/1370>

Australia's leading socialist newspaper Green Left Weekly is strongly
committed to supporting the growing "people's power" movement in Latin
America. We are proud of the fact that GLW is the only Australian
newspaper to have a permanent bureau in Latin America, based in Caracas,
Venezuela. Through our weekly articles on developments in the region,
GLW strives to counter the corporate media's many lies about Latin
America's revolutions, and to give a voice in English to the people's
movements for change.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1370>


     Socialists, the environment and ecosocialism: a view from South
     Africa <http://links.org.au/node/1369>

By Trevor Ngwane
November 19, 2009 -- There is an ecological crisis in the world and this
crisis can be traced to capitalism. There is deforestation due to the
trade in timber. There is climate change due to unsafe production
methods. The working class is the class that suffers the most from the
ecological crisis. Working-class people are in the majority and their
life conditions make them more vulnerable. Workers live in flimsy houses
and shacks that are easily washed or swept away by strong rains and
winds. When workers are sick or injured there is always not enough
medical help for them. Over the years not enough attention has been paid
to this problem by socialists.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1369>

* * *
Links seeks to promote the international exchange of information,
experience of struggle, theoretical analysis and views of political
strategy and tactics within the international left. It is a forum for
open and constructive dialogue between active socialists coming from
different political traditions. It seeks to bring together those in the
international left who are opposed to neoliberal economic and social
policies. It aims to promote the renewal of the socialist movement in
the wake of the collapse of the bureaucratic model of "actually existing
socialism" in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

ATTENTION: Sign up for regular ``what's new'' announcement emails at
http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=343373

Follow Links on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LinksSocialism


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

What's new at Links: Venezuela, Australia, China, UCal students,
Stalinism, Tamils, population, Mexico, Portugal, Canada, Quebec

* * *
Subscribe free to Links - International Journal of Socialist Renewal -
at http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=343373

You can also follow Links on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LinksSocialism

Visit and bookmark http://links.org.au and add it to your RSS feed
(http://links.org.au/rss.xml). If you would like us to
consider an article, please send it to links@...

*Please pass on to anybody you think will be interested in Links.

* * *


     Venezuela: Socialists debate party's direction
     <http://links.org.au/node/1364>

By Kiraz Janicke, Caracas
November 16, 2009 – The United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) held
nation-wide delegate elections on November 15 for its First
Extraordinary Congress which will be held over the next several weekends
in Caracas. Up for discussion at the congress are the party’s program,
principles, organisational structure and most likely the mechanism for
selecting candidates for the national parliamentary elections of 2010.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1364>


     Australia: Elected socialist's goal of `campaigning' local council
     gained wide support <http://links.org.au/node/1363>

Justine Kamprad is a co-convenor of the Fremantle branch of the
Socialist Alliance, in Western Australia (WA), and was the party's
campaign director for the October 17, 2009, Fremantle City Council
election, which saw socialist Sam Wainwright top the poll and get
elected with 33.44% of the vote. Wainwright is the first member of the
Socialist Alliance to be elected to public office in Australia, and one
of only two socialist party members currently in an elected local
council position in the country. Jim McIlroy spoke to Kamprad about the
successful campaign.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1363>


     China today: socialist or capitalist? <http://links.org.au/node/1355>

By Chris Slee
November 13, 2009 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal
has published a number of articles on the Chinese Revolution
<http://links.org.au/taxonomy/term/404> and the subsequent restoration
of capitalism in China. This article aims to give more detail on the
current situation, including the Chinese government's efforts to
ameliorate some of the harmful effects of capitalism.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1355>


     Join the 2010 `May Day’ solidarity brigade to Venezuela! April 24 -
     May 2, 2010 <http://links.org.au/node/1368>

Registrations close February 1, 2010
The Australia-Venezuela Solidarity Network’s brigades to Venezuela are a
once-in-a-lifetime experience - the opportunity to see first-hand an
unfolding revolution that is not only radically transforming the lives
of Venezuelans, but is challenging the greed, exploitation and
destructiveness of global capitalism by showing that a better world is
possible.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1368>


     United States: Photo essay -- Students occupy Berkeley university
     building to protest fee hike <http://links.org.au/node/1367>

Story and photos by David Bacon
Berkeley, California -- November 20, 2009 -- Students occupied Wheeler
Hall on the University of California campus in Berkeley, protesting
against a decision by university regents to raise tuition fees by 32%,
bringing them to US$10,302 per year for undergraduates.
At the beginning of the occupation the students made several demands,
including the reinstatement of 38 laid-off custodial workers, and
amnesty for protesting students.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1367>


     Paul Le Blanc: Theories of Stalinism <http://links.org.au/node/1366>

     The Marxism of Leon Trotsky
     By Kunal Chattopadhyay
     Kolkata: Progress Publishers, 2006, 672 pages

     Western Marxism and the Soviet Union
     By Marcel van der Linden
     Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2009, 379 pages

Reviews by Paul Le Blanc

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1366>


     Cuba and ALBA let down Sri Lanka’s Tamils
     <http://links.org.au/node/1362>

By Ron Ridenour
November 14, 2009 -- I think that the governments of Cuba, Bolivia and
Nicaragua let down the entire Tamil population in Sri Lanka, as well as
“proletarian internationalism� and the “exploited�, by extending
unconditional support to Sri Lanka’s racist government.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1362>


     Population control’s dark past <http://links.org.au/node/1361>

Review by Simon Butler
November 16, 2009 -- A select group of billionaires met in semi-secrecy
in May 2009 to find answers to a “nightmarish� concern. Their worst
nightmare wasn’t the imminent danger of runaway climate change, the
burgeoning levels of hunger worldwide or the spread of weapons of mass
destruction. The nightmare was other people – lots of other people.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1361>


     A new united movement stops Mexico for a day
     <http://links.org.au/node/1360>

By Tamara Pearson

November 14, 2009 -- Mexico City -- In the many metro stations of this
giant city, amidst the ugly smell of Pizza Hut and the newspapers
vendors yelling out, “Grafico! 3 pesos!�, every day young people crowd
around the handwritten posters recruiting for the national police. At
12,000 pesos (US$1000) per month, and with increasing unemployment and
harder prospects, the offer is very tempting.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1360>


     Portugal: What's behind the success of the Left Bloc?
     <http://links.org.au/node/1359>

By Raphie de Santos
Portugal’s Left Bloc has achieved a major breakthrough in the last five
months. It polled nearly 11% and 10% respectively in the recent European
and parliamentary legislative elections in June and September 2009. For
a party that is firmly established outside of left social democracy this
is a major achievement. How did it happen?

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1359>


     Canada/Quebec: Québécois denounce Supreme Court attack on language
     rights <http://links.org.au/node/1358>

By Richard Fidler
November 9, 2009 -- The October 22 ruling by the Supreme Court of Canada
overturning yet another section of Quebec’s Charter of the French
Language (CFL) has been met with angry protests by a broad range of
opinion in the French-speaking province.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1358>


     Four goals for a new left party <http://links.org.au/node/1357>

By Duncan Chapel

November 14, 2009 -- The people on this platform share a lot of ideas.

     * We want a working-class party to the left of the Labour Party,
       with a socialist program that confronts the dual crises of the
       ecology and the economy, which the ruling class is struggling to
       contain
     * We want a party in which anti-capitalists are hegemonic, but not
       monolithic. We have to be open to everyone who’s for the class
       struggle, not just those with Marxist ideas
     * We want a party of struggle, based on the ground, that’s
       developing a movement of resistance as well as an electoral campaign.

That’s a lot of agreement. It’s meaningful. It’s new. We like it. But
what’s the next step?

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1357>


     Canada: Vale Inco strike shows need for international action
     <http://links.org.au/node/1356>

By Marc Bonhomme, translated by Richard Fidler
A Québécois militant, member of Québec solidaire, discusses the global
implications of the strike by 3500 workers at Vale Inco, the world’s
largest nickel mine, in Sudbury, Ontario.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1356>

* * *
Links seeks to promote the international exchange of information,
experience of struggle, theoretical analysis and views of political
strategy and tactics within the international left. It is a forum for
open and constructive dialogue between active socialists coming from
different political traditions. It seeks to bring together those in the
international left who are opposed to neoliberal economic and social
policies. It aims to promote the renewal of the socialist movement in
the wake of the collapse of the bureaucratic model of "actually existing
socialism" in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

ATTENTION: Sign up for regular ``what's new'' announcement emails at
http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=343373

Follow Links on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LinksSocialism



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

What's new at Links: US-Colombia, Venezuela, Berlin Wall, queerphobia,
green jobs, Karen Silkwood, S. Africa, Honduras, Ireland, US health

* * *
Subscribe free to Links - International Journal of Socialist Renewal -
at http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=343373

You can also follow Links on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LinksSocialism

Visit and bookmark http://links.org.au and add it to your RSS feed
(http://links.org.au/rss.xml). If you would like us to
consider an article, please send it to links@...

*Please pass on to anybody you think will be interested in Links.

* * *


     US-Colombia military deal: Threat of imperialist-backed war on
     Venezuela <http://links.org.au/node/1346>

By Kiraz Janicke
November 9, 2009 -- The possibility of an imperialist-backed war in the
Americas came a step closer on October 30, when Colombia and the United
States finalised a 10-year accord allowing the US to massively expand
its military presence in the Latin American country. The move comes as
the US. seeks to regain its hegemony over Latin America - which has
declined over the past decade in the context of a continent-wide
rebellion against neoliberalism spearheaded by the revolution in
Venezuela, led by President Hugo Chavez.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1346>


     `Freedoms won, freedoms lost' -- left views on the fall of the
     Berlin Wall <http://links.org.au/node/1354>

November 15, 2009 -- For the past few weeks the international capitalist
mass media has been awash with triumphalist hoopla about the so-called
``collapse of Communism'' as it celebrates the 20th anniversary of the
1989 fall of the Berlin Wall. Below Links International Journal of
Socialist Renewal posts a number of commenatries from the left that deal
with facts and fictions of those dramatic events, and how the people
most effected are faring today.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1354>


     Capitalism, sexism and queerphobia's social basis
     <http://links.org.au/node/1353>

By Jess Moore
There are social expectations on everyone, men and women, to act in
particular ways based on our sex. This is bad for everyone because it's
stifling, but it's worse for women and queers.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1353>


     Britain: The Lucas Aerospace workers' plan -- A real Green New Deal
     <http://links.org.au/node/1350>

By Hilary Wainwright and Andy Bowman
October 9, 2009 -- Thirty-five years ago, workers at the Lucas Aerospace
company formulated an ``alternative corporate plan'' to convert military
production to socially useful and environmentally desirable purposes. We
consider what lessons it holds for the greening of the world economy today.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1350>


     Convert the ailing car industry to socially necessary production!
     <http://links.org.au/node/1349>

With the economic recession and environmental crisis alternative plans
for socially useful, sustainable production have never been more
relevant argues Lars Henriksson.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1349>


     Karen Silkwood: an inspiration to fighters for environmental justice
     and workers' rights <http://links.org.au/node/1348>

By Sharyn Jenkins
Thirty-five years ago, on November 13, 1974, US anti-nuclear activist
and trade unionist Karen Silkwood was killed in a car crash many suspect
was deliberately caused. Karen Silkwood will be remembered as someone
who fought an uphill and often unpopular battle against the ruthless
nuclear industry. She is an inspiration to all who believe in
environmental justice and workers' rights.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1348>


     What is 'left' about 'the left' in South Africa?
     <http://links.org.au/node/1347>

By Dale T. McKinley
November 5, 2009 -- For several years now, but particularly since the
ascendancy of Jacob Zuma and his South African Communist Party (SACP)
and Congress of South African Trade Union (COSATU) allies within both
the African National Congress (ANC) and the state, ``the left'' in South
Africa has come to be almost completely associated with (and presented
as) the SACP, COSATU and, to a lesser extent, the ANC itself. Even
though this state of affairs ignores a wide range of organisations and
people that can stake a serious claim to being part of ``the left'', the
fact is that contemporary politics in South Africa are dominated, in one
way or another, by these three alliance partners. As such, it is a good
time to pose a critically important question: What is ``left'' about
``the left'' in South Africa?

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1347>


     Honduras: Why the resistance will boycott the November 29 election;
     Zelaya on accord <http://links.org.au/node/1345>

November 10, 2009 -- Ricardo Salgado, an Honduran analyst of the
``crisis'' in Honduras, explains to Australian community radio's Warwick
Fry the latest developments in Honduras and the postion of the
resistance movement. In spite of pressure on the coup regime to
recognise the legitimacy of Zelaya as president ten days ago, Zelaya is
still trapped inside the Brazilian embassy. The ``agreement'' (designed
more to save face for the US and the coup regime rather than the
restoration of a democratic solution) has failed. The coup regime has
failed to meet the one-week deadline to restore Zelaya to his post as
president in a reasonable amount of time to allow a ``clean'' election
process.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1345>


     Ireland: (slideshow) Political murals of West Belfast
     <http://links.org.au/node/1344>

By Lauren Carrol Harris
November 9, 2009 -- Belfast -- Though Northern Ireland has slipped from
the nightly news, "the troubles", including ongoing deep sectarian
divisions and low-level violence, are a daily reality for Irish
republicans. Just one reminder of the struggle for a united Ireland, and
example of the Irish people's creative resistance, is the multitude of
political murals that smother the walls of West Belfast, a republican
stronghold. Many commemorate the activists and civilians whose lives
were taken in the struggle. But the murals don't just discuss Irish
politics -- on these walls are messages of international solidarity for
other peoples' movements for change and self-determination. Here are
just a few.

View at http://links.org.au/node/1344


     United States: Where's the socialism? The good, the bad and the ugly
     of health-care reform <http://links.org.au/node/1343>

By Billy Wharton
November 9, 2009 -- Where is the socialism now? Frenetic right-wingers
spent a good part of the US summer shouting about the "government
takeover of health care" or the "stealth socialist health-care plan".
Now that the Affordable Healthcare for America Act has been passed by a
slim margin in the US House of Representatives, on November 8, there are
few traces of anything even resembling socialism. Instead, Americans
will find the good, the bad and the ugly of health-care reform all
contained within the 1990-page bill.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1343>


     Michael Lebowitz on Venezuela: `Socialism requires a new state from
     below' <http://links.org.au/node/1341>

Michael Lebowitz interviewed by José Sant Roz
<http://www.aporrea.org/tiburon/a89208.html>, translated by Kiraz Janicke

November 5, 2009 -- On the question of the Bolivarian revolution in
Venezuela, Michael Lebowitz is one of the thinkers who has penetrated
deepest into our process. He plunges his scrutinising gaze into its most
diverse and conflicting issues, in order to calmly and forcefully reveal
its truth with knifelike clarity. He talks like a peasant or a worker
who dips into the reality that they experience, that they suffer and feel.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1341>

* * *
Links seeks to promote the international exchange of information,
experience of struggle, theoretical analysis and views of political
strategy and tactics within the international left. It is a forum for
open and constructive dialogue between active socialists coming from
different political traditions. It seeks to bring together those in the
international left who are opposed to neoliberal economic and social
policies. It aims to promote the renewal of the socialist movement in
the wake of the collapse of the bureaucratic model of "actually existing
socialism" in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

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What's new at Links: Honduras, John Bellamy Foster, refugees, Lenin,
Peru, Austria, land grab, ecosocialism, Nepal, carbon trading

* * *
Subscribe free to Links - International Journal of Socialist Renewal -
at http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=343373

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     Honduras: Deal to restore Zelaya collapses under weight of US-coup
     regime's duplicity <http://links.org.au/node/1340>

By Stuart Munckton
November 8, 2009 -- The accord signed on October 30 to resolve the
crisis that has brought Honduras to a standstill since the June 28
military coup has collapsed. The coup leader Roberto Micheletti has
continued to refuse to accept the accord's insistence that elected
President Manuel Zelaya be reinstated.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1340>


     John Bellamy Foster: `The roots of the world ecological crisis'
     <http://links.org.au/node/1337>

October 29, 2009 -- "We have no other word but crisis to describe it,
really. It's very different than the economic crisis that we are now in,
in the sense that even a very, very severe economic crisis, such as the
one that has been present since late 2007 ... still is, in many ways, a
cyclical event... These crises are periodic -- it's part of the nature
of capitalism... But what we are talking about as the world ecological
crisis is another kind of crisis.''

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1337>


     Joint statement: Respect human rights -- free the refugees! Reject
     Australia's 'Indonesian solution'! Welcome the asylum seekers
     <http://links.org.au/node/1336>

Joint statement by the Australian Socialist Alliance; Socialist Party
(Australia); Socialist Party of Malaysia (PSM); Network of the Oppressed
People (JERIT), Malaysia; CWI Malaysia; Confederation Congress of
Indonesian Union Alliance (KASBI); Working Peoples Association (PRP),
Indonesia; National Liberation Party of Unity (PAPERNAS), Indonesia;
Indonesian National Front for Labor Struggle (FNPBI); Socialist Worker
New Zealand, Socialist Alternative (Australia), Partido Lakas ng Masa,
Philippines, Transform Asia, Labour Party Pakistan, Resistance
(Australia) and Militan-Indonesia

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1336>


     Lenin's place in history <http://links.org.au/node/1338>

By Graham Milner
Lenin stands out as one of the unquestionably great personalities of
20th century history. Yet such has been the impact of this man on the
course of history in this century that his life and ideas have often
become the subject of either the most vicious distortion or the most
abject and craven cult-worship.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1338>


     Peru: Government launches attack on Indigenous peoples' organisation
     <http://links.org.au/node/1335>

Introduction and translation by Kiraz Janicke
November 4, 2009 --The government of Peru has launched a massive attack
on Indigenous peoples through a request to dissolve the Amazon
Interethnic Development Association of the Peruvian Rainforest
(AIDESEP), Peru's largest and most representative Indigenous organisation.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1335>


     Austria: Students occupy universities; mass demonstrations and broad
     solidarity throughout the country <http://links.org.au/node/1334>

By the international press working group, Occupied University of Vienna
November 3, 2009 -- Throughout the last few years, studying conditions
at Austrian universities have dramatically declined. The introduction of
tuition fees, a massive cutback of democratic structures and lack of
course availability are only some examples. Reasons can be found in the
huge decline in university funding on the one hand and the introduction
of the three-level "Bologna" system on the othe, resulting in the
implementation of admission reductions and limits. On October 22,
students' dissatisfaction turned into savage protest.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1334>


     Corporate investors lead rush for control of poor countries'
     farmland <http://links.org.au/node/1333>

With all the talk about "food security," and distorted media statements
like "South Korea leases half of Madagascar's land," it may not be
evident to a lot of people that the lead actors in today's global land
grab for overseas food production are not countries or governments but
corporations. So much attention has been focused on the involvement of
states, like Saudi Arabia, China or South Korea. But the reality is that
while governments are facilitating the deals, private companies are the
ones getting control of the land. And their interests are simply not the
same as those of governments.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1333>


     Fourth International debates `ecosocialism'
     <http://links.org.au/node/1332>

By Michael Löwy

October 10, 2009 -- Daniel Tanuro's report on climate change [Report on
climate change at the IC of the Fourth International] is one of the most
important documents produced by our movement in recent years. It is an
invaluable contribution to the political arming of revolutionary
Marxists and to making them capable of facing up to the challenges of
the 21st century.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1332>


     Nepal: Interview with the UCPN (Maoist)'s Baburam Bhattarai: `We
     have not abandoned the revolutionary path'
     <http://links.org.au/node/1331>

October 26, 2009 -- This interview first appeared on the web site of the
Britain-based World People's Resistance Movement (WPRN). It has been
posted at Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal with
permission. Baburam Bhattarai is a politburo member of the Unified
Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) and was finance minister in the former
Maoist government led by Prachanda.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1331>


     Climate change: The carbon trading debacle
     <http://links.org.au/node/1330>

By Carter Burke
October 28, 2009 -- The next major international summit on climate
change will be held in Copenhagen in early December, 2009. The position
of the United States in these talks remains ambiguous.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1330>

* * *
Links seeks to promote the international exchange of information,
experience of struggle, theoretical analysis and views of political
strategy and tactics within the international left. It is a forum for
open and constructive dialogue between active socialists coming from
different political traditions. It seeks to bring together those in the
international left who are opposed to neoliberal economic and social
policies. It aims to promote the renewal of the socialist movement in
the wake of the collapse of the bureaucratic model of "actually existing
socialism" in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

ATTENTION: Sign up for regular ``what's new'' announcement emails at
http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=343373

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Looking for SEX partner! Check my H.O.T photos here:
http://intimater.zoomshare.com/files/intimate.htm

http://gci-icg.org/english/wall89.htm
 
20 years ago…
A wall fell and misery went on!




The following article has been written in the autumn of 1989, during the events
around the fall of the Berlin wall. Twenty years later this text is no longer
topical, but its content has retained its full meaning however. We have decided
to present this text without updating. Since 1989, admittedly many things have
changed, but the essentials didn’t however: i.e. the class struggle. The
lessons we drew at the time from this movement are still valid.
Nothing new in the Eastern bloc!
In 1989 Eastern European bourgeoisie carried out spectacular changes (1) in the
management of capital and in the containment of the proletariat. In Poland,
Hungary, Eastern Germany, Czechoslovakia, reforms were going round as well as
restructuring, political parties were “legalised� and multiplied, and the
media were “liberalized,� with a “great breath of freedom� all over the
world as the democratic propaganda pretended.
But did these upheavals, and these changes in the functioning of the bourgeoisie
mean something? Which necessity did these reforms originate from? They above all
fitted to the necessity for the bourgeoisie to manage the crisis, while
defending its rate of profit, and while anticipating and preventing the
unavoidable rebellions, as resulting of the economic pressure that the
proletariat was (and is still) suffering.
The crisis of capital has no borders but it expresses in different ways,
according to the possibilities for the local bourgeois to contain it. Eastern
European countries’ economy was bankrupted and collapsing. Information
collected here and there showed the lack of work and the weakness of
productivity: e.g. in Czechoslovakia, such a worker said that in his printing
house “one actually works only two days per week,� another one reported that
“the workers sometimes lose half of their working time because of the bad
organization.� Often the proletarians called their wage a “financial support
for employment� since they all considered being half unemployed. A worker from
the GDR spoke about absenteeism of around 50% in her factory. A Russian worker
summarized the situation with this joke: “we pretend to work, and the state
pretends to pays us!�
The democratic hypocrisy appeared once again especially through the media’s
heartfelt cry: “One must help Poland to go through the winter.� As if
capital could develop any help, solidarity and brotherhood! The only reason why
the bourgeoisie was ready to share some bread, it’s their fear that hunger
could turn into a huge attack on their terrorist order. The hunger riots in
Argentina in 1989 showed us how fast the bourgeois order can appear generous
when the proletariat is getting restless: only a few hours after the beginning
of the riots, trucks full of food were sent in the workers’ districts.
The relative protectionism and the rigid statist structures in the Eastern
countries resulted in the fact that in the relentless war bourgeois factions
wage on against each other, the capitalist constellations and actually and
nowadays ruling factions, e.g. represented by the EC or the USA, got the upper
hand and dictated their laws stressing much more on open free-market.
It was therefore an absolute necessity for these central Europe nations to
restructure “their� economy, in order to offset the decreasing of capitalist
profits through a decline of the workers’ social wage, as well as to prevent
the proletarians rising up and rejecting any reformism, any bourgeois
alternative. Once again, the bourgeoisie succeeded with an unbelievable speed
and flexibility in adapting itself.
The old Stalinist oligarchies were ousted with such an ease that clearly showed
how vital it was for the whole system that a reformist team take over. This plan
was almost alike in all these countries where the opposition and the left wing
of the national “communist parties� managed the reforms and the transition
towards a multiparty system, free elections, etc. And thus the “Polish Unity
Workers’ Party� and the trade union “Solidarity,� the Eastern German
“Socialist Unity Party� and the “New Forum,� the Hungarian CP –which
became SP- and the “Democratic Forum,� etc. ad nauseam, all of them
yesterday false “rivals,� were then waving together the flag of their
national economy and discussing about the end of Stalinism, about the
realization of the common democratic ideal, and the necessity to save the
country, etc. Together they called proletarians for calm and to avoid using
violence. In Prague, Vaclav Havel and Dubcek
  (from the “Civic Forum�) shook the hands of their former Stalinist jailers.
In Moscow, the yesterday murderers called then officially the invasion of
Czechoslovakia in 1968 a “mistake�. The bourgeoisie’s alternatives played
their role, while of course always agreeing with the essential, i.e. the
maintenance of the capitalist order: they tried to fool us while describing this
“opposition� as being opposed to the real problems that cause misery,
repression and terror.
Eastern proletarians were thus fed with the promises of the blissful-making
“multiparty system� in Western countries. The happy future and the hopeful
answer sold then to them, it’s the freedom of speech and association, freedom
of worship and of the press, free elections and unions, human rights, free
market and economy, i.e. rights and rights and always rights, but still no
bread! As if the fact to legally associate in the same parliament different
ideological but however interconnected factions of the bourgeoisie would alter
something to the fact that in the West as in the East the democratic order,
exploitation was (and still is) going on to rule further. And de facto, those
who were too credulous with the promises of the state in the East and though
that their situation would improve, those quickly became disillusioned by the
reality of capitalist continuity. We didn’t have to wait long for the
democratic forces of the different “Forum�
  providing weapons to the defence of their reforms and shooting at the
proletarians, to realize that they defend the same interests than the
Stalinists. Alike that Russian housewife, who cynically declared not finding the
“Perestroika� when opening her refrigerator, the Eastern proletarians
quickly became disillusioned, when being confronted with the fact that, no
matter which faction is the manager, capital has no other possibility but
deepening its catastrophic crisis and worsening proletariat’s living
conditions.
That’s where the struggling proletarians were suppressed with tanks in 1953,
one hoped then calming down the explosive situation through law and rights, i.e.
the right to be exploited as well as the freedom to vote for our exploiters.
That was the bourgeois alternative towards decades of rough and strict Stalinism
against which proletarians rose up.
In Berlin, a wall fell, but misery went on!
In Eastern Germany the bourgeoisie ran after the general dissatisfaction in
order to take it over. The extremely explosive character of the situation
gradually forced the state to legalize the huge demonstrations of the summer of
1989, to approve the numerous departure-propositions towards the West, to oust
the old mummy Honecker, to propose a multiparty system and free elections, to
oust Egon Krenz after a short attempt to make the new state-leader of this
Honecker’s right-hand man, and finally to remove the Berlin wall, to imprison
especially the most odious members of the former government, etc. However such
spectacular measures didn’t seem to calm down quickly enough the long
restrained anger and fury of the proletarians. Those who then took to the
streets, asked for an explanation. In Dresden, Rostock, Cottbus and Suhl, they
entered the buildings of the state security police (the “Stasi� murderers),
and destroyed documents and files. In
  Erfurt, demonstrators set up “vigilance committees� in order to control the
buildings of the secret police. Actions were led against the Eastern German army
(the NVA), but also against the Soviet armed forces. The government issued
several calls for maintaining “security and order,� while stressing on the
necessity “to guarantee the security of the military installations and to
prevent the illegal access on weapons and fuel oils.�
Because they were scared that the proletariat should be too close to the
weapons, which could be used for overthrowing this society, the Eastern German
bourgeoisie disarmed the militia troops in the factories, because the weapons
these troops were equipped with (recoilless canons, anti-aircraft defence,
grenade launchers, tanks, etc.), represented a big temptation for all those who,
beyond the democratic circus organized by the opposition, were dreaming to
further do battle with military methods against the class enemy. All the
bourgeois factions without distinction were afraid of the explosion and
preventively gathered the weapons as a precaution. The “New Forum� felt the
danger for democracy coming from the proletariat and increased calling for calm
and disarming. The Protestant church pointed out: “if the anger of the
population is understandable (...), no violence can be excused (...) and nobody
can yield to hate.�
The bourgeoisie was running until it was out of breath in order to prevent an
explosion of the situation. And never mind the ideologies, which yesterday
represented the different bourgeois factions, they had no role to play. The same
yesterday “right-winger� Stalinists, who were behind and executed the mass
murders of 1953 (e.g. Egon Krenz, the Honecker’s successor), acted then as
vanguard for reforming and restructuring at all costs, while the opposition
(“New Forum� among others) took concerted action, while approving and
transforming each increase in discontent from the grass roots into a responsible
demand for more democracy, for a “real socialism.� Giving a “human face�
to inhumanity, showing an acceptable picture of their exploitation and misery to
proletarians, that was the project of the bourgeois politics and the
“political changes� in the GDR (but also e.g. in Czechoslovakia). The
bourgeoisie responded too late in other
  socialist countries, e.g. in Algeria and China, and couldn’t avoid the
bloodbath.
But there was another ghost that the bourgeoisie brought out again during the
restructuring in Eastern Germany: reunified Germany. It’s clear that there is
no “German question� from our class point of view. The reason to put forward
the question of the reunification of both countries was to hijack the
proletarians’ struggle about the improvement of their living conditions and to
turn it into the defence of a state concentrating and centralising more
important productive forces than the ones of the competing nations. Nothing in
common with the wish of the Eastern German proletarians to meet up with parents
or friends again on the other side of the wall, or with the fact that workers
were going to Western Germany for higher wages or looking after commodities,
which were unobtainable in the East. But the state used these phenomenons in
order to encourage the nationalism and to drown the proletarian interests in it.
And de facto, as from September 1989 Eastern Germans left one nation for another
in order to find work. Hardly arrived, they experienced the joys of “Western
free market� under the shape of dozens of bosses of small and big companies,
who were searching for some cheap labour force. Since however there was not
enough of work for everyone at all, the Eastern German workers directly became
in competition with their class brothers.
If the monopolies and the tendency to big economic concentrations (tendency
which becomes more pronounced in times of crisis because it’s about being
stronger faced with the competition), probably drove to reunification of
Germany, it was anyway and finally realised against the present and future
interests of the workers.
As valorisation area of capital, the GDR was dependent upon the FRG already for
a long time: e.g. tax exemption for exports, privileged trade agreements, 3.3
billion Deutsche Marks per year interest-free loan aid in kind, etc. So to speak
the GDR was actually the thirteenth member of the EC! Moreover this aid became
even more intensive after the removing of the “iron curtain� in November
1989. But this support was of course not philanthropic at all. Proletarians in
the GDR couldn’t improve their material situation through these “aids�.
The lent funds concerned only the managers of capital.
The unified Germany issue, the multiparty system and free elections, the
abolition of the constitution article over the leading role of the “Socialist
Unity Party,� the opening of the wall, etc., all this misery and wretched toys
about rights and liberties coming back were summarized in the consideration of
an Eastern German football supporter: “Now, we can also support our team
outside!� Apart from it they especially gained the right to go window-shopping
while visiting the West, as many proletarians stressed on. But however, in order
to buy commodities, the Eastern German proletarians didn’t really need windows
but rather money. A wall fell but misery went on!
The reunification of Germany and the first step into this direction that the
opening up of the wall represented didn’t have only supporters. With demagogic
electioneering slogans, the bourgeois faction interested in a unified Germany
met with a “rampart� against the “migration movements from the East.� Or
better said, the European governments were scared with the potential influx of
migrant unemployed. They reminded in this context of the “population increase
from the Mediterranean countries.� The reality seems to be harmless while
using all these safe and comfortable euphemisms of the “political analysts.�
It is clear that the bourgeoisie in the East didn’t produce these reformist
ideas willingly; it was forced by the proletariat to do like this. The
experience of Tiananmen forced the Eastern European bourgeoisie to draw some
lessons. Either they had to quell the movements initiated a little bit
everywhere in the East with much bloodshed, like they did in the GDR 1953, in
Hungary 1956, in Poland 1980 or even in China 1989, what in the end could prompt
the development of proletarian direct action and class consciousness; either the
local bourgeoisies developed methods and ways to defuse the movement, while
proposing something sufficiently “new,� something as “showy� as the
“Perestroika� in Russia, but of course in accordance with the local
circumstances.
The problem for the bourgeoisie in Eastern Germany, confronted with a so
explosive situation, was that a massive armed repression, like the mass-murder
of Tiananmen, for several reasons, was very risky, if not even impossible.
Firstly, because the use of the local gendarme (i.e. the 380,000 Soviet soldiers
who were stationed in the GDR) was almost impossible, because the whole reforms
campaign of the Eastern European bourgeoisie, to keep the control on the
proletariat in this zone, would then be completely jeopardised. Secondly,
because a mass-murder, as it happened in China, would be high-risk for the
bourgeoisie, especially about the generalisation of the unrest: even the
proletarians in Western Germany would be roused, because there were many bonds
uniting them beyond the “Wall,� and especially, violent struggles and
solidarity actions of the Eastern European populations would then be provoked,
populations suffering from the economic crisis and
  austerity they were exasperated with.
All the bourgeois factions in the West had pretty well understood what was at
stake behind the demonstrations of discontent in the East. Whereas they didn’t
have stopped to bore us in the West with the necessity to put an end to
“socialism,� whereas they had never missed an opportunity to propose us to
go over there “if it was not convenient for us here,� in the moment all
these assholes played for us the show of “solidarity� with the problems the
Eastern European nations had to face. The Belgian prime minister summarized the
opinion of the European bourgeoisie, while calling for doing everything, which
is possible to do, “in order the USSR keeps the control over its satellite
countries.� Was there a clearer invitation for the USSR to assume its practice
of local gendarmerie further? In the same way in a common accord, both big
military blocks, NATO and the Warsaw Pact, decided to get their alliances
unchanged. The bourgeois in the
  West, and more widely everywhere in the world, didn’t stop to recommend the
status quo, the equilibrium, smooth reforms… They had only the word
“stability� in their mouth, because behind the “instability� they saw
the first stirrings of the old mole’s nose. The ghost of communism still
haunted Europe!
The old mole is digging and digging...
Although the proletariat existed as a ghost, nevertheless the weaknesses while
asserting itself were very important. It’s really hard to see how it was easy
for the different bourgeois factions to contain the proletariat and to make them
waving their own flags: in GDR and in Czechoslovakia, it wasn’t the black and
red flags that waved over the heads of the demonstrators, but that of nation,
liberty, democracy and multiparty-system. The bourgeoisie thus succeeded in
erecting a tunnel, whose exit can only lead to a war, at least if the
proletariat continues to behave quietly with the left wing of democracy.
Faced with this dark perspective and proletariat’s weaknesses, we can be
guardedly optimistic however. Not of course while considering the tragic lack in
the preparation for the struggles to come, but in relation to the more and more
obvious standardization of the living standards of the proletariat, and also the
speeches used by the bourgeoisie in order to justify the crisis. The word
“democracy� is on each bourgeois’ lips in order to force their program
upon the proletariat. But even if the speech about democracy is still today
deluding the masses of too credulous proletarians, the objective impossibility
for the “democrats� to offer another perspective than misery can only push
the proletariat to shatter the democratic myth and to bring democracy to light
on a worldwide scale: everywhere, independently of the local “regime� at the
time and beyond any ideological disguise, democracy is nothing but the terrorist
way of life of capital!
  Will it last long until the proletariat will have to face the guns of the
police of Walesa, Havel and Co? And when the “New,� “Democratic,�
“Civic� or “Socialist� Forums will send armed forces to protect
democracy, and to shoot at those who won’t accept no longer the speeches over
the necessity to make “sacrifices�? Will it then need long argumentations to
show the democratic substance shared by the “dictatorship of a one-party
system� and that of a “multiparty system?�
After the collapse of the trap of pseudo-socialism, what’s the Eastern
bourgeoisie had left in order to falsify, channel and contain the struggles? The
new credo of “Gorbatshow,� the “economic solidarity� about restoring the
economy of the country, didn’t work. More and more and everywhere, the
proletariat will have to confront the police and military repression in the
struggles to come.
The standardization of the exploitation conditions and the ideological traps can
only strengthen the standardization of the proletariat, and therefore also its
response while struggling.
What appeared as a victory of the bourgeoisie (which was strong enough in order
to foresee a rebellion-movement, and to break it), will actually backfire on our
enemy and become the strengthening of the working class. Go on old mole dig
further…
Note
(1) These changes are admittedly “spectacular,� and even “showy� in the
superficial sense of the bourgeois media, however this adjective is not
synonymous with “essential,� because precisely the bourgeois reforms were
(and always are!) nothing but necessary corrections of the exploitation
conditions. While talking of “spectacular changes,� we refer to the
“spectacularization� and the bourgeois performance made from superficial
changes, which were (and always are!) neither essential nor factual changes of
the immediate situation for the proletariat. Moreover these “changes�
didn’t afford any real perspective for the bourgeoisie to get out of the
crisis. The only “showy� feature of the reforms in Eastern Europe was the
show organized by the bourgeois media.

Read

COMMUNISM

Dictatorship of the Proletariat for the Abolition of Wage Labour

Central review in English of the Internationalist Communist Group (ICG)




[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

What's new at Links: Honduras deal, Cuba, ISO, S. Africa, Cultural
Revolution, Pakistan, African Communist, CPA councillors, anti-war
march, NGO cretinism

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* * *


     Honduras: Deal signed for Zelaya's return, but struggle continues
     <http://links.org.au/node/1328>

By Stuart Munckton
October 31, 2009 -- After more than 120 days of mass resistance by the
poor majority of Honduras, against a coup regime that overthrew elected
President Manuel Zelaya, the regime has finally signed an agreement for
Zelaya's reinstatement.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1328>


     Cuba: UN for the 18th consecutive year demands end to US blockade
     <http://links.org.au/node/1324>

Vote: 187 in favour to 3 against, with 2 abstentions

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1324>


     Paul Le Blanc -- Why I'm joining the US International Socialist
     Organization: Intensifying the struggle for social change
     <http://links.org.au/node/1323>

By Paul Le Blanc
October 2009 -- I have decided to join the International Socialist
Organization (ISO) because I believe socialists can and must, at this
moment, intensify the struggle to bring about positive social change.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1323>


     South Africa: Time for a new democratic left party?
     <http://links.org.au/node/1327>

By Mazibuko K. Jara
October 30, 2009 -- Our country is in crisis. There is deepening
inequality, many people live in permanent poverty and millions are
unemployed for most of their adult lives. Women continue to suffer from
social oppression, violence and poverty. The very ecological and
biophysical conditions for our human existence are under threat.
Retrogressive ideologies in our society are gaining ground: we are going
back to ethnic identity, we have retrogressive notions of womanhood, we
have seen the rise in the power of undemocratic rule of unelected
chiefs. The state is dysfunctional, corrupt and fraudulent. The state
seems unwilling to confront the economic system that produces all these
crises. Together, none of these socioeconomic problems can be addressed
by a South Africa that reproduces capitalism. These problems require
solutions that go beyond capitalist accumulation.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1327>


     China: Youth and the Cultural Revolution <http://links.org.au/node/1326>

By Graham Milner
The revolution that brought the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to power
in 1949 marked the second great breach, after the Russian Revolution of
October 1917, in the 20th century imperialist world order, and initiated
a process that was to remove from the capitalist orbit the most populous
nation in the world, containing over a quarter of its population. The
revolution of 1949 aroused vast expectations not only among China's
popular masses, but also among the peoples of the Third World as a
whole, and indeed among the socialist-minded everywhere.[2] However, by
the end of the 20th century, communism had been overturned in Eastern
Europe and the USSR, while in China a largely discredited,
authoritarian, Stalinist regime had virtually abandoned anything more
than a nominal adherence to socialist ideals. So what went wrong?

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1326>


     Pakistan: What to do about religious fundamentalism?
     <http://links.org.au/node/1325>

By Farooq Tariq
October 28, 2009 -- Once again Pakistan has become the focus of world
attention. Every day there is news of the latest suicide attack or
military operation, with killings, injuries and the displacing of
communities. Recently schools were ordered closed for more than a week.
Even children talk about death and suicide attacks.
With more than 125 police checkpoints in Islamabad, it has become a
fortress city. Lahore and other large cities are suffering the same
fate: there are police road blockades everywhere. After each terrorist
attack authorities issue another security high alert and set up
additional barriers. How ironic that, until recently, officials and the
media described these "terrorists" as Mujahideen fighting for an Islamic
world.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1325>


     South Africa: 'The African Communist': 50 years of mobilisation,
     analysis <http://links.org.au/node/1322>

By Blade Nzimande
October 26, 2009 -- A browse through the very first edition of the
African Communist in 1959 not only gives an insight into the time and
context during which it was launched but also the courageous and defiant
character of those who breathed life into our historic journal:
``This magazine, the African Communist, has been started by a group of
Marxist-Leninists in Africa, to defend and spread the inspiring and
liberating ideas of Communism in our great Continent, and to apply the
brilliant scientific method of Marxism to the solution of its problems.
It is being produced in conditions of great difficulty and danger.
Nevertheless we mean to go on publishing it, because we know that Africa
needs Communist thought, as dry and thirsty soil needs rain.''

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1322>


     Australia: Red councillors during the Cold War: Communists on Sydney
     City Council, 1953-59 <http://links.org.au/node/1321>

Recent electoral victories in Australia by socialists at the municipal
council level -- the Socialist Party's Stephen Jolly in Victoria and
Socialist Alliance's Sam Wainwright in Western Australia -- have sparked
renewed interest in the experiences of other socialists who have been
elected to such bodies. With permission of the Rough Reds Collective,
Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal is publishing Beverley
Symons' paper that examines the example of Communist Party of Australia
members elected to the Sydney City Council in the 1950s. This article
first appeared in the 2003 book A Few Rough Reds, published by the
Australian Society for the Study of Labour History, Canberra Region Branch.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1321>


     Britain: Landmark demo against the war in Afghanistan + videos
     <http://links.org.au/node/1320>

By Robin Beste
October 25, 2009 -- Stop the War's demonstration on October 24 brought
the centre of London to a standstill. It was a landmark demonstration,
led by Lance Corporal Joe Glenton -- the first serving soldier in the
British army to join an anti-war march.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1320>


     Asia: NGOs display `lobby cretinism' over ASEAN human rights
     commission <http://links.org.au/node/1319>

By Giles Ji Ungpakorn
October 25, 2009 -- The Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN)
is made up of Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Burma, Brunei and
Singapore, which are all authoritarian states. It also includes the
semi-democratic Malaysia, along with the Philippines and Indonesia,
which are more or less democratic. Would anyone expect a gathering of
government leaders from these countries to set up a genuine human rights
commission? Apparently, some NGOs from the region did think so.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1319>

* * *
Links seeks to promote the international exchange of information,
experience of struggle, theoretical analysis and views of political
strategy and tactics within the international left. It is a forum for
open and constructive dialogue between active socialists coming from
different political traditions. It seeks to bring together those in the
international left who are opposed to neoliberal economic and social
policies. It aims to promote the renewal of the socialist movement in
the wake of the collapse of the bureaucratic model of "actually existing
socialism" in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

ATTENTION: Sign up for regular ``what's new'' announcement emails at
http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=343373

Follow Links on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LinksSocialism


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

By *Paul Le Blanc *

October 2009 -- I have decided to join the International Socialist
Organization (ISO) because I believe socialists can and must, at this
moment, intensify the struggle to bring about positive social change. I
have been active in this struggle for most of my life -- as a member of
the "new left" in the 1960s and early '70s (first in Students for a
Democratic Society and briefly in the New American Movement), then in
the Trotskyist movement (the Socialist Workers Party for ten years,
briefly in Socialist Action, the Fourth Internationalist Tendency for
another eight years). I have always considered "Trotskyism" as the same
as revolutionary socialism, associated with some of the most useful
ideas and most inspiring traditions that ever existed -- something I
will come back to shortly.

Since 1992 I have been a member of Solidarity, which over the years has
attracted a number of fine people who have done excellent work, although
it has never proved able to sustain a membership of more than 300. I
feel I have done all that I can to help build Solidarity. At this point
I believe I may have more to contribute to building the International
Socialist Organization (ISO) and am hopeful that the ISO can play a
badly needed role in the intensification of the struggle to bring
fundamental social change.

In this decision, I feel there is a continuity with commitments and
efforts of more than four decades, and I definitely do not intend to cut
myself off from the friends and comrades in other organisations. I want
to touch on such things more in this statement, but first I want to
emphasise the sense of urgency that has caused me to take this step.

Full article http://links.org.au/node/1323

Subscribe free to Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal at
http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=343373

You can also follow Links on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LinksSocialism

What's new at Links: Tamil oppression, US blockade of Cuba, Monthly
Review@60, climate, Bad banks, Malaysia, Iran, media lies, Pakistan,
Arabic, Indonesia

* * *
Subscribe free to Links - International Journal of Socialist Renewal -
at http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=343373

You can also follow Links on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LinksSocialism

Visit and bookmark http://links.org.au and add it to your RSS feed
(http://links.org.au/rss.xml). If you would like us to
consider an article, please send it to links@...

*Please pass on to anybody you think will be interested in /Links/.

* * *


     Sri Lanka: Brian Senewiratne on the humanitarian crisis facing the
     Tamil people <http://links.org.au/node/1318>

October 22, 2009 -- In September 2008, the government of Sri Lanka
ordered all aid agencies (including the UN agencies) to leave the
``northern war zone'' -- inhabited by Tamils -- of Sri Lanka. Socialist
Alliance member Brian Senewiratne explains the history of Sri Lanka and
the attacks on the oppressed Tamil people of the north and east.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1318>


     Cuba's 2009 report to United Nations on the US economic blockade
     <http://links.org.au/node/1315>

To be presented to the UN General Assembly on October 28, 2009

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1315>


     `Monthly Review' at 60: Six decades of campaigning for `social and
     ecological revolution' <http://links.org.au/node/1314>

Monthly Review editor John Bellamy Foster (introduced by Robert
McChesney) speaking at the 60th anniversary celebration of the
independent socialist magazine.

     * Watch and read more <http://links.org.au/node/1314>


     When the climate change centre cannot hold
     <http://links.org.au/node/1317>

By Patrick Bond
October 26, 2009 -- After the October 24-25 weekend in which 350.org and
thousands of allies around the world valiantly tried to raise global
consciousness about impending catastrophe (see slideshow below, photos
from 350.org), we can ask some tough questions about what to do after
people have departed and the props packed up. No matter the laudable
big-tent activism, let's face it: global climate governance is
gridlocked and it seems clear that no meaningful deal can be sealed in
Copenhagen on December 18.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1317>


     System's defenders warn of 'collapse' of global capitalism
     <http://links.org.au/node/1316>

By Grant Morgan
October 22, 2009 -- Something molecular is changing in the DNA of
capitalism. Look at these three recent quotes:
"The future will be a total disaster, with a collapse of our
capitalistic system as we know it today"
"Capitalism is near the tipping point, unprepared for a catastrophe, set
up for collapse and rapid decline."
"There is a high probability of a crisis and collapse by 2012. The
'Great Depression 2' is dead ahead. Unfortunately, there's absolutely
nothing you can do to hide from this unfolding reality or prevent the
rush of the historical imperative."
What's particularly important about these quotes is who made them. Not
socialists. No, they were made by ardent, intelligent and reputable
defenders of capitalism.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1316>


     Socialist Party of Malaysia: `Stop collusion with Sri Lankan govt!
     Stop repatriation of Sri Lankan refugees!
     <http://links.org.au/node/1313>

By Dr. Jeyakumar Devaraj
October 22, 2009 -- The Socialist Party of Malaysia (PSM) is concerned
for the safety and wellbeing of the 207 Sri Lankan asylum seekers who
are being held at the Immigration Detention Centre at the Kuala Lumpar
International Airport (KLIA), as well as the 108 Sri Lankan refugees
detained at the Pekan Nanas Immigration Detention Centre.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1313>


     Iran: Where is the Islamic Republic going?
     <http://links.org.au/node/1312>

By Houshang Sepehr
What is happening in Iran is a spontaneous, ingenious and independent
revolt by a people frustrated by thirty years of tyranny by an
obscurantist, religious regime, a revolt that was unleashed by electoral
fraud. The present situation is only the result of a long and complex
process which has been taking place inside the regime, a deep crisis,
located on the one hand at the summit of the governing circles and
within the ruling class, and on the other hand within Iranian society.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1312>


     Why the international media lies about events in Latin America
     <http://links.org.au/node/1311>

By Eric Toussaint, translated by Francesca Denley and Judith Harris
October 21, 2009 -- It may be useful to assess the dangers of the
systematically hostile attitude of the overwhelming majority of major
European and North American media companies to the current events taking
place in Ecuador, Bolivia and Venezuela. This hostility is only matched
by an embarrassed, complicit silence towards those involved in the
putsch in Honduras and the repression of the Peruvian army against the
Indigenous populations of the Amazon.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1311>


     Pakistan: Workers' leader killed in suicide attack
     <http://links.org.au/node/1310>

By Farooq Tariq
October 21, 2009 -- A prominent labour leader Master Khudad Khan was
killed in suicide attack in Peshawar on October 15. He was on his way to
a meeting and was passing by an intelligence centre when a religious
fanatic blew himself up killing him and several others on the spot.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1310>


     The Flame, October 2009 -- Green Left Weekly's Arabic-language
     supplement <http://links.org.au/node/1309>

October 21, 2009 -- With the help of Socialist Alliance members in the
growing Sudanese community in Australia, Green Left Weekly --
Australia's leading socialist newspaper -- is publishing a regular
Arabic language supplement. The Flame will cover news from the
Arabic-speaking world as well as news and issues from within Australia.
The editor-in-chief is Soubhi Iskander, a comrade who has endured years
of imprisonment and torture at the hands of the repressive government in
Sudan.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1309>


     Indonesia: President's inauguration marked by anti-neoliberal
     protests <http://links.org.au/node/1308>

By Ulfa Ilyas, Surabaya
October 20, 2009 -- Thousands of people protested at the national
parliament building in Jakarta today, during the inauguration of Susilo
Bambang Yudhoyono as Indonesia's new president and Boediono as
vice-president. Protesters demanded that the president put an end to
neoliberal policies during his second term, because they have been
proven to be a failure and have brought suffering to the people of the
world, including Indonesia.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1308>

* * *

Links seeks to promote the international exchange of information,
experience of struggle, theoretical analysis and views of political
strategy and tactics within the international left. It is a forum for
open and constructive dialogue between active socialists coming from
different political traditions. It seeks to bring together those in the
international left who are opposed to neoliberal economic and social
policies. It aims to promote the renewal of the socialist movement in
the wake of the collapse of the bureaucratic model of "actually existing
socialism" in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

ATTENTION: Sign up for regular ``what's new'' announcement emails at
http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=343373

Follow Links on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LinksSocialism


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

/Monthly Review/ was launched in May 1949, initially reaching only a few
hundred subscribers, in what was a grave time for radical dissent. The
enveloping reactionary, brutal and vulgar system of oppression –
McCarthyism – was felt in every corner of society, impacting trade
unions, government, publishing, film, television and education. It made
the survival, even the very existence, of the fledgling /Monthly Review/
enterprise all the more surprising.

But survive it did.

Full article (with video speech by John Bellamy Foster)
at http://links.org.au/node/1314

Subscribe free to Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal at
http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=343373

You can also follow Links on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LinksSocialism

What's new at Links: Australia, Afghanistan, Hugo Blanco, Obama, Iran,
Tom Keneally, Greece, W.Sahara, India, Pacific

* * *
Subscribe free to Links - International Journal of Socialist Renewal -
at http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=343373

You can also follow Links on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LinksSocialism

Visit and bookmark http://links.org.au and add it to your RSS feed
(http://links.org.au/rss.xml). If you would like us to
consider an article, please send it to links@...

*Please pass on to anybody you think will be interested in /Links/.

* * *


     Australia: Socialist Alliance celebrates its first electoral victory
     <http://links.org.au/node/1307>

October 18, 2009 -- Newly elected local municipal councillor Sam
Wainwright summarised what he saw as the significance of his election to
the Fremantle Council, in the state of Western Australia (WA): "It's a
victory for all those like me who believe that the council can and
should play an active role in involving people in decision making,
protecting the environment, campaigning for workers' rights and making a
place in the community for people who are too often left out, such as
Indigenous Australians and people with disabilities."

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1307>


     Malalai Joya: The Afghan people are `squashed between two powerful
     enemies <http://links.org.au/node/1306>

Film by Nomad Collective
October 18, 2009 -- Malalai Joya: ``Now, my people are squashed between
two powerful enemies. From the sky, the occupation forces are dropping
bombs, even using cluster bombs and white phosphorus and killing
innocent civilians in the name of combatting the Taliban. On the ground,
the Taliban and also the Northern Alliance fundamentalists continue
their fascism against men and women of my country.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1306>


     Hugo Blanco: Indigenous people are the vanguard of the fight to save
     the Earth <http://links.org.au/node/1304>

October 13, 2009 -- Peruvian peasant leader Hugo Blanco, who edits the
newspaper La Lucha Indigena, was interviewed in Arequipa, in southern
Peru. The previous day he gave a presentation at a conference entitled
"40 Años de la Reforma Agraria" at the city's Universidad Nacional de
San Agustín.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1304>


     Iran: English edition of underground opposition newspaper, `Khiaban'
     (`The Street') <http://links.org.au/node/1305>

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1305>


     Tom Keneally's `The People's Train': Steaming along the tracks of
     revolution <http://links.org.au/node/1302>

The People's Train
By Tom Keneally,
Vintage Books, 2009

Review by Phil Shannon
October 10, 2009 -- When Artem Samsurov first came to Brisbane in 1911,
the Russian exile noted that the poor did not eat horse meat like they
did in his native country and he wondered whether this did indeed make
it true that Australia was a "working man's paradise"? A diet that was
no stranger, however, to rabbit, and bread and lard, suggested
otherwise. Tom Keneally's latest novel, The People's Train, follows the
political and romantic adventures of Samsurov, a fictional character
closely based on Fedor (``Artem'') Sergeyev, a Bolshevik who escaped
from exile in Siberia after the crushing of the 1905 revolution in
Russia and who was a political activist in Brisbane for six years. [See
the Australian Dictionary of Biography's entry for Fedor``Artem''
Sergeyev below this review.]

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1302>


     Greece: Right-wing government defeated, deeper radical left unity
     needed <http://links.org.au/node/1301>

By Antonis Davenellos
October 14, 2009 -- The results of the October 4 elections in Greece
were a political earthquake that have created a new situation in the
country. The crushing defeat of the ruling party has opened up a period
of deep political crisis for the right, a crisis that by all indicators
will be long lasting.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1301>


     Polisario Front briefing paper on the question of Western Sahara
     <http://links.org.au/node/1300>

By the Polisario Front
October 2009
Western Sahara (the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic) is located in
northwest Africa and covers an area of 266,000 square kilometres. It is
bordered by Morocco to the north, Algeria to the northeast and
Mauritania to the East and southeast and has a 1,200-kilometre-long
Atlantic Ocean coastline. The Saharawi Republic was proclaimed on 27
February 1976; its capital is El Aaiún.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1300>


     India: Statement condemns government military offensive against the
     Indigenous people <http://links.org.au/node/1299>

October 14, 2009 -- Sanhati is a collective of activists/academics who
have been working in solidarity with peoples' movements in India by
providing information and analysis. We have been profoundly disturbed by
the Indian government's reported plans to launch an unprecedented
military offensive in the huge forested regions of central India,
populated by millions of Indigenous tribes (adivasis), for stamping out
an alleged Maoist insurgency.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1299>


     Review of `Renegade: The Making of Barack Obama'
     <http://links.org.au/node/1298>

Renegade: The Making of Barack Obama
By Richard Wolfe, Virgin Books, London 2009
Review by Jeff Richards
Whatever your views are about Barack Obama, there is no doubt that his
campaign for the US presidency was a major milestone in the history of
electoral politics in the United States. How did a senatorial rookie who
was black, with an alien name and a background in community organising
get to the centre of the system of power? It was both a matter of
circumstance (the crises and failure of neoconservative project) and the
remarkable political skills of Obama and the campaign team led by David
Axelrod.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1298>


     United States: `Birthers', `deathers' and haters -- Right-wing
     populism and liberal retreat <http://links.org.au/node/1297>

By Malik Miah, San Francisco
October 11, 2009 -- The heat is on the administration of US President
Barack Obama. The energised conservative base has taken over town hall
meetings on health care. There are "birthers" (those who claim Obama is
not a US citizen and ineligible to be president), "deathers" (those who
claim Obama's health care reform is a plan to kill old people) and just
pure haters. Obama has been personally attacked as a racist, socialist,
communist, Stalinist, fascist, Nazi, Pol Potist, foreigner and every
other name the right finds in its vocabulary.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1297>


     Science and empire in the Pacific <http://links.org.au/node/1296>

By Barry Healy
More than 240 years ago, on April 13, 1769, the peace of Tahiti was
interrupted by the visit of Captain James Cook, supposedly observing the
transit of Venus across the Sun, but really following secret orders to
investigate the Pacific Ocean and its islands for the benefit of British
colonialism. Mainstream Australian history raises James Cook to a
pinnacle because he established a white, British dominion on the
Australian continent. However, at the time his fame was eclipsed because
on board his ship was gentleman scientist Joseph Banks with a posse of
staff. Banks' star outshone Cook's because his work acquired the
botanical treasures of Oceania for the British Empire, paving the way
for Britain to dominate vital areas of science for its own benefit.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1296>

* * *
Links seeks to promote the international exchange of information,
experience of struggle, theoretical analysis and views of political
strategy and tactics within the international left. It is a forum for
open and constructive dialogue between active socialists coming from
different political traditions. It seeks to bring together those in the
international left who are opposed to neoliberal economic and social
policies. It aims to promote the renewal of the socialist movement in
the wake of the collapse of the bureaucratic model of "actually existing
socialism" in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

ATTENTION: Sign up for regular ``what's new'' announcement emails at
http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=343373

Follow Links on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LinksSocialism


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

http://links.org.au/node/1307


   Australia: Socialist Alliance celebrates its first electoral victory

October 18 -- Newly elected local municipal councillor Sam Wainwright
summarised what he saw as the significance of his election to the
Fremantle Council, in the state of Western Australia: "It's a victory
for all those like me who believe that the council can and should play
an active role in involving people in decision making, protecting the
environment, campaigning for workers' rights and making a place in the
community for people who are too often left out, such as Indigenous
Australians and people with disabilities."

Wainwright is a co-convenor of Socialist Alliance in Western Australia
and activist in the Maritime Union of Australia. He said, "I'm the first
socialist elected to public office in WA for a long time, if not ever.
Most candidates for council try to appeal to the middle ground and keep
their political affiliations quiet. I don't believe in that approach. I
think it's better to be upfront about your beliefs. Throughout the
campaign I emphasised that I was a staunch socialist, unionist and
environmentalist."

He added, "I didn't expect everyone to sign up to everything I stand
for. But I did ask people to believe that I would be a hard working
campaigner for their rights. I'm really grateful and humbled that so
many people have shown their confidence in me and saw my background as a
positive."

Wainwright thanked the diverse range of people who supported his
campaign. "Active support came from all sorts of places: members of the
Socialist Alliance, the Greens and the ALP all pitched in; many
unionists and community activists helped out; and last but not least,
everyday residents who don't wear a political label but want to see the
sort of change that we talked about in the campaign. The election result
belongs to these people and I know that the hard work now begins."

Commenting on the Fremantle mayoral election Wainwright said, "With
three Greens members running for mayor I was worried that they would
takes votes from each other and allow a more conservative candidate to
win. However Brad Pettit's win was emphatic and I extend my
congratulations to him for his strong and vibrant campaign. There has
been a real changing of the guard on the council and I expect there will
be some passionate and intense debate about the future of Fremantle. I
think this is a good thing and will be arguing my case like everyone
else. At the same time I pledge to work constructively with the rest of
council where we can find common ground on the way forward."

Victory by 100 votes

At the October 17 poll in the seaside city, not far from the Perth,
Western Australia's capital, Wainwright topped the poll with 438 votes
(33.44%) -- more than 100 more votes than his nearest competitor and
enough to put him over the line for the Hilton Ward of Fremantle
Council. (The official election results can be read here
<http://www.waec.wa.gov.au/elections/local_government/election_centre/council.ph\
p?eID=%7B92E12E4F-DF91-462C-A10F-44901E539F15%7D&cID=Fremantle>.)

At a victory celebration on October 17, Wainright told supporters that
this victory was for the whole Socialist Alliance and the diverse
supporters of his campaign. He was proud that this campaign had been
successful while being fully open about his socialist, environmentalist
and unionist convictions.

Wainwright is the first Socialist Alliance member to be elected to a
local government position in Australia. For more on how the campaign was
conducted, please visit http://www.samforhilton.blogspot.com/ and
http://www.socialist-alliance.org/perth
<http://www.samforhilton.blogspot.com/>.

Messages of solidarity and congratulations can be left at
http://samforhilton.blogspot.com/2009/10/victory-for-sam-by-100-votes.html.



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

I read your profile today, I thought I would drop you a line and hope to become
your friend! Check my personal page here:
http://furlover.zoomshare.com/files/invite.htm

What's new at Links: Afghanistan, Honduras, Cuban 5, Euro left,
S.Africa, PT Brazil, China, Levellers, Philippines, Thailand, Germany

* * *
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     Afghanistan: Interview with Malalai Joya -- The occupation is `a war
     on the Afghan people' <http://links.org.au/node/1295>

Malalai Joya interviewed by Steven Littlewood

October 9, 2009 -- Malalai Joya has been described as "the bravest woman
in Afghanistan". A long-term opponent of the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (NATO) presence in her country, Malalai Joya first rose to
prominence through a heartfelt and controversial speech in 2003 that was
an indictment of the powerful positions gifted to Afghan warlords by the
US-led coalition. She was elected to the Afghan parliament in 2005 and
continued her campaign against war criminals and fundamentalists there
until being suspended in 2007 for criticising fellow MPs. Activists Noam
Chomsky and Naomi Klein are amongst those who have called for her
reinstatement.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1295>


     Positive developments in the European left
     <http://links.org.au/node/1289>

By Ian Angus
October 7, 2009 -- LeftViews recently published an article by Alex
Callinicos, a central leader of Britain's Socialist Workers Party (SWP),
on the state of the left in Europe. While conceding that there have been
some gains, overall the picture he painted was dire... But by itself,
his article might leave readers with a picture of unrelieved gloom, when
in fact there are some bright spots of note. In Germany and Portugal,
leftwing parties made modest but important gains in last month's
elections, while in France and England we're seeing constructive steps
towards greater unity on the left.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1289>


     Honduras: Interview with Juan Barahona, leader of the National
     Resistance Front Against the Coup <http://links.org.au/node/1286>

By Pedro Fuentes, Tegucigalpa
October 1, 2009 -- "We will not stop. We will continue to be against the
coup until the last day they are in power," Juan Barahona said in an
interview at the headquarters of STYBIS, the beverage workers' trade
union. Barahona is the principal leader of the resistance, together with
Carlos Reyes, president of the trade union, a close comrade of Barahona
and an independent candidate for the next presidential election.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1286>


     Audio: Attorney Leonard Weinglass on the Cuban Five
     <http://links.org.au/node/1294>

Attorney Leonard Weinglass discusses the case of the Cuban Five with
Mitchel Cohen.

     * Listen <http://links.org.au/node/1294>


     South Africa: Democracy's everyday death -- the ANC's coup in
     Kennedy Road; Shack dwellers: `Our movement is under attack!'
     <http://links.org.au/node/1293>

By Nigel Gibson and Raj Patel
October 8, 2009 -- You don't need presidential palaces, or generals
riding in tanks, or even the CIA to make a coup happen. Democracy can be
overthrown with far less pomp, fewer props and smaller bursts of state
violence. But these quieter coups are no less deadly for democracy. At
the end of September 2009, just such a coup took place in South Africa.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1293>


     Workers Party of Brazil: The different strategies of the Latin
     American left <http://links.org.au/node/1292>

By Valter Pomar, secretary of international relations, Workers' Party
(PT) of Brazil
October 10, 2009 -- It has become commonplace to say that there are two
lefts in Latin America: one would be "carnivore", the other
"vegetarian"; one would be radical, the other moderate; one would be
revolutionary, the other reformist; one would be socialist, the other
capitalist. Dichotomous definitions of this kind are made by
spokespersons (official or unofficial) of the US State Department, with
the explicit purpose of bringing about discord in the Latin American
left, making it fight itself rather than its common enemies.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1292>


     CPI (ML) Liberation: Cooperation, not confrontation, should be the
     basis of India's China policy <http://links.org.au/node/1291>

Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation
October 9, 2009 -- The October 1 celebration of the 60th anniversary of
the foundation of the People's Republic of China has attracted worldwide
attention. Considering the historical baggage of backwardness with which
modern China had begun its journey and the size of China's billion-plus
population, China has indeed come a long way in these six decades.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1291>


     The Levellers and the 1640s English Revolution
     <http://links.org.au/node/1290>

By Graham Milner
In 1649, 360 years ago this year, an experiment in communal land holding
and cultivation began on St. George's Hill in Surrey, England, as the
principles of a communist society were put into practice by the Diggers
-- followers of Gerrard Winstanley, a visionary and writer of radical
political tracts. This experiment marked an important phase in the
development of socialist tendencies in the struggle to defeat the Stuart
monarchy in the 1640s.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1290>


     Philippines socialists: `Moratorium on foreign debt to pay for a
     modern weather forecasting service' <http://links.org.au/node/1288>

By Partido Lakas ng Masa
Moratorium on foreign debt servicing to pay for essential and basic
services! Upgrade Pagasa's equipment now!

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1288>


     Thailand: Comparing the 1976 and 2006 coups
     <http://links.org.au/node/1287>

By Giles Ji Ungpakorn
October 5, 2009 -- People like to say that "history repeats itself, but
not in exactly the same way". In some ways, and not others, the military
coup of the September 19, 2006, was a repeat of the bloodbath and coup
on October 6, 1976. Circumstances are different, some actors are
different and some have changed sides. But there are interesting
comparisons to make.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1287>


     Germany: Big gains for Die Linke as Social Democrats' support
     collapses <http://links.org.au/node/1285>

By Duroyan Fertl
October 5, 2009 - Germany's ``centre-right'' Chancellor Angela Merkel
was returned to power in federal elections held on September 27, but
with a record low voter turnout and an increased vote for the far-left
party, Die Linke (The Left).

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1285>


     Honduras: The threat of a Haiti-style foreign military occupation
     <http://links.org.au/node/1284>

By Ricardo Arturo Salgado
Tegucigalpa, September 27, 2009 - The Honduras crisis has sparked great
interest among thinkers of both right and left up and down the
continent. Many people are reflecting on events, using all the
analytical tools their knowledge permits. There is wide scope for
speculation, mainly because - for most people - the actions of different
forces have been so unexpected in character.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1284>

* * *
Links seeks to promote the international exchange of information,
experience of struggle, theoretical analysis and views of political
strategy and tactics within the international left. It is a forum for
open and constructive dialogue between active socialists coming from
different political traditions. It seeks to bring together those in the
international left who are opposed to neoliberal economic and social
policies. It aims to promote the renewal of the socialist movement in
the wake of the collapse of the bureaucratic model of "actually existing
socialism" in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

ATTENTION: Sign up for regular ``what's new'' announcement emails at
http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=343373

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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

What's new at Links: Honduras, S. Africa, Fidel Castro, Venezuela,
Mexico's La Jornada, Guatemala and Canada, India - Lalgarh, Portugal,
East Timor, Thailand

* * *
Subscribe free to Links - International Journal of Socialist Renewal -
at http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=343373

You can also follow Links on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LinksSocialism

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(http://links.org.au/rss.xml). If you would like us to
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* * *


     On the spot in Honduras: The people are still on the streets!
     <http://links.org.au/node/1282>

By Pedro Fuentes, international secretary of the Party Socialism and
Liberty (PSOL, Brazil)
September 29, 2009 -- Honduras -- "Blood of martyrs, seeds of freedom"
was the slogan at the burial of Wendy, who died as a result of tear gas
this weekend. All "awakening has its price" and "Honduras has awoken",
an activist from a Communist Party background involved in the resistance
told me at the ceremony for the comrade, held September 28 at the
national cemetery. Using Marxist terms, the comrade said that in
Honduras this awakening has meant that the movement has taken "a
qualitative leap forward".

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1282>


     South Africa: `The ANC has invaded Kennedy Road' shack settlement
     <http://links.org.au/node/1281>

Statement by Abahlali baseMjondolo president S'bu Zikode. S'bu and his
family have been living as refugees since the September 26-27 violence
by the African National Congress targeting Abahlali leaders at Kennedy
Road shack settlement in Durban, South Africa. He appeals for continued
support for the Shack Dwellers Movement in these dire times of
government repression and lies. It can be said without exaggeration that
the so-called democratic government of South Africa is attempting to
silence and disband the country's largest social movement of the poor.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1281>


     (Updated October 2) Honduras: Dictatorship steps up reign of terror,
     resistance pushes on <http://links.org.au/node/1277>

By Fred Fuentes, Caracas
October 1, 2009 - The dictatorship in Honduras, which overthrew the
elected government of Manuel Zelaya in a military coup on June 28, has
stepped up its reign of terror. A state of siege remains in place.
However, the ongoing resistance has caused further cracks to open within
the pro-coup forces as support for the resistance spreads.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1277>


     Venezuela plans deeper popular democracy to address economic crisis
     <http://links.org.au/node/1283>

By Federico Fuentes, Caracas
September 24, 2009 -- Faced with the growing impact of the global
economic crisis, Washington's intentions to establish seven military
bases in Colombia and growing challenges in solving structural problems,
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez reaffirmed the need to build a new state.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1283>


     Mexico's leftist 'La Jornada': 25 years of rabble rousing
     <http://links.org.au/node/1280>

By John Ross, Mexico City
September 27, 2009 -- Seven mornings a week, Vicente Ramirez's battered
aluminium kiosk on Cinco de Mayo Street in this city's old quarter is
plastered with the front pages of 22 daily newspapers. All day handfuls
of pedestrians pause to gawk at the incendiary headlines slapped to the
siding, often engaging in animated debate about the nature of the news.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1280>


     Photo essay: Guatemalan Indigenous communities resist violent
     eviction by Canadian mining company <http://links.org.au/node/1279>

Story and photo essay by James Rodríguez, Barrio La Union, El Estor,
Izabal, Guatemala
September 28, 2009 -- As a result of a frustrated eviction attempt in
the community of Las Nubes in El Estor, Izabal, Adolfo Ich Xaman (middle
in photograph above) was brutally shot and killed by private security
guards subcontracted by the Guatemalan Nickel Company (CGN), local
subsidiary of HudBay Minerals Inc., a Canadian mining company.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1279>


     India: Lalgarh's battle for dignity and justice
     <http://links.org.au/node/1276>

By the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation
September 27, 2009 -- The following appeared as the editorial in the
July 2009 issue of Liberation, the central organ of Communist Party of
India (Marxist-Leninist) - CPI (ML). Since then, while the paramilitary
campaign in Lalgarh has ended, repression against the adivasi (tribal)
people of Lalgarh continues, with incidents of rape and violence reported.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1276>


     Portugal: Boost for left as Left Bloc doubles its representation
     <http://links.org.au/node/1275>

Left Bloc, Portugal
Portugal's parliamentary elections, held on September 27, 2009, have
changed the political landscape. The Socialist Party (SP), which had an
absolute majority in 2005 with 45% of vote, lost more than half a
million votes and fell to 36.56%. Even as the winner, it is in a
minority in parliament, the only political force which lost seats in
relation to 2005 (96 down from 121).

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1275>


     East Timor: The struggle for full independence -- 10 years on
     <http://links.org.au/node/1274>

By Mericio Akara, translated by Vannessa Hearman
September 30, 2009 -- Dili -- What is commemorated as Timor Leste's
(East Timor) "liberation" is the United Nations-facilitated referendum
on August 30, 1999. East Timor, which had been a Portugese colony, was
already an independent country, as a result of the pro-independence
political party Fretilin declaring East Timor independent on November
28, 1975. But barely days after the independence proclamation, on
December 7, 1975, the Suharto dictatorship in Indonesia used all its
military firepower to invade Timor Leste.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1274>


     Philippines: Flood relief appeal from Partido Lakas ng Masa
     <http://links.org.au/node/1273>

By Reihana Mohideen, international desk, Partido Lakas ng Masa (Party of
the Labouring Masses)
September, 28, 2009 -- Typhoon Ondoy swept through the Philippines on
September 26, displacing some 250,000 people and, according to the most
recent reports, has left some 86 people dead. Urban centres, such as
Metro Manila, were also badly affected with more than 80% of the city
under water. In some areas the water was around 4'-5' deep. Apparently
one month's rainfall poured down in a matter of a few hours. We are
conducting relief operations through our own networks and we are
appealing for funds to support our relief work.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1273>


     Thailand: When King Pumipon dies ... <http://links.org.au/node/1272>

By Giles Ji Ungpakorn
September 25, 2009 -- Many Thais, whether they are royalist ``Yellow
Shirts'' or pro-democracy ``Red Shirts'', are waiting for King Pumipon
Adunyadet [often spelled Bhumipol Adulyadej in the Western press] to
die. It may take years. Their feelings will be different, either
positive or negative. This is because Pumipon has influenced Thai
society for years. But the issue to discuss is whether this influence is
created by others or based on the king's own power?

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1272>


     Fidel Castro on Honduras: A revolution in the making
     <http://links.org.au/node/1271>

By Fidel Castro
September 24, 2009 -- Last July 16, I said that the coup d'état in
Honduras "was conceived and organised by unscrupulous characters on the
far-right - officials who had been in the confidence of George W. Bush
and were promoted by him"... I then indicated that the Yankee base at
Soto Cano [Honduras] had provided the main backup to the coup and that
"the idea of a peace initiative from Costa Rica was transmitted to the
president of that country [Oscar Arias] from the State Department when
Obama was in Moscow and was declaring at a Russian university that the
only president of Honduras was Manuel Zelaya."

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1271>

* * *
Links seeks to promote the international exchange of information,
experience of struggle, theoretical analysis and views of political
strategy and tactics within the international left. It is a forum for
open and constructive dialogue between active socialists coming from
different political traditions. It seeks to bring together those in the
international left who are opposed to neoliberal economic and social
policies. It aims to promote the renewal of the socialist movement in
the wake of the collapse of the bureaucratic model of "actually existing
socialism" in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

ATTENTION: Sign up for regular ``what's new'' announcement emails at
http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=343373

Follow Links on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LinksSocialism


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

What's new at Links: Honduras insurrection, Chinese Revolution@60,
Caster Semenya, Timor Leste & Cuba, Swaziland, W. Sahara, Gramsci, HIV
care & Cuba

* * *
Subscribe free to Links - International Journal of Socialist Renewal -
at http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=343373

You can also follow Links on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LinksSocialism

Visit and bookmark http://links.org.au and add it to your RSS feed
(http://links.org.au/rss.xml). If you would like us to
consider an article, please send it to links@...

*Please pass on to anybody you think will be interested in Links.

* * *


     (Updated Sept. 28) International solidarity with the Honduran
     people's struggle for democracy <http://links.org.au/node/1267>

Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal below is publishing
various solidarity statements and reports of actions in solidarity with
the democracy struggle of the people of Honduras.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1267>


     (Updated Sept. 27) Insurrection in Honduras: Resistance Front says
     'we won't rest until victory' <http://links.org.au/node/1263>

By Federico Fuentes, Caracas
September 25 -- "The whole world knows that what we have here in
Honduras is a coup regime", Armando Licona, a leader from the
Revolutionary University Student Front said. Green Left Weekly spoke
with Licona, whose organisation is part of the National Resistance Front
Against the Coup (FNRG), on the phone from the Honduran capital,
Tegucilgalpa.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1263>


     (Updated Sept. 25) Honduras: Zelaya returns -- Resistance prepares
     more action; coup regime reacts with repression
     <http://links.org.au/node/1261>

By Federico Fuentes, Caracas

September 22, 2009 -- The dictatorship in Honduras, which overthrew the
elected government of President Manuel Zelaya on June 28, has unleashed
a wave of repression against the masses of people who have taken to the
streets following Zelaya's dramatic return on September 21.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1261>


     People's Republic of China at 60: socialist revolution, capitalist
     restoration <http://links.org.au/node/1270>

[Click HERE <http://links.org.au/taxonomy/term/404> for more analysis of
the Chinese Revolution and its evolution.]

By Chris Slee
September 23, 2009 -- October 1 will mark 60 years since Mao Zedong
proclaimed the creation of the People's Republic of China. This followed
the victory of the People's Liberation Army, led by the Communist Party
of China (CCP), over the US-backed Kuomintang (Chinese Nationalist
Party, KMT). In 1921, when the CCP was founded, China was in chaos.
Western intervention -- military, economic, political and cultural --
had destroyed or undermined traditional Chinese institutions. New,
stable institutions had not been created. Various imperialist powers
grabbed pieces of Chinese territory.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1270>


     People's Republic of China at 60: Maoism and popular power,
     1949-1969 <http://links.org.au/node/1269>

By Pierre Rousset
With the proclamation of the People's Republic of China on October 1,
1949, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) found itself at the head of a
country three times larger than Western Europe, with a population of
some 500 million. The internal situation was favourable to the
revolutionary regime. At the end of a long series of civil and foreign
wars, the population sought and relied on the new leaders to achieve
peace while the ongoing people's mobilisation opened the way for a deep
reform of society.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1269>


     People's Republic of China at 60: 1925-1949 -- Origins of the
     Chinese revolution <http://links.org.au/node/1268>

Retrospectively, we know the importance of the period opened in China by
the overthrow in 1911 of the Qing Dynasty: it concluded, nearly four
decades later, with the victory of the Communist revolution on October
1, 1949 - an event of historical scope. However, at the time, the future
of the country looked very uncertain.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1268>


     The persecution of Caster Semenya -- sport and intersex people's
     rights <http://links.org.au/node/1266>

By Farida Iqbal
September 20, 2009 -- Eighteen-year-old South African track athlete
Caster Semenya has done nothing wrong. Yet she has been accused of
deceiving the world about her sex. There is nothing wrong with Semenya's
body. Yet her body has been paraded in front of the world by the mass
media as if she were a sideshow freak. Semenya is a talented athlete.
Yet her career is at stake.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1266>


     Los! Hau Bele! -- `Yo! Si Puedo' comes to Timor Leste: Cuba assists
     the eradication of illiteracy <http://links.org.au/node/1265>

By Bob Boughton
In Timor Leste [East Timor], which is one of the world's newest
countries and Australia's poorest Asia-Pacific neighbour, Cuba is
delivering an educational aid program which aims to eradicate
illiteracy, currently affecting nearly 50% of the adult population,
within a period of less than 10 years.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1265>


     Swaziland: Democracy leader released after 340 days, struggle
     continues <http://links.org.au/node/1264>

September 22, 2009 -- Democracy activists in Swaziland celebrated on
September 22 after the leader of the country's opposition was acquitted
of terrorism charges and freed from prison after 340 days. Banned
People's United Democratic Movement (PUDEMO) leader Mario Masuku
(pictured above) was arrested and charged with terrorism on November 15,
2008. The charge centred on seditious statements he had allegedly made
during the funeral of a militant. Judge Mbutfo Mamba acquitted Mr Masuku
because the evidence was too weak to link him to the charge.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1264>


     Western Sahara: Venezuela's President Chavez calls for liberation of
     the Sahrawi people <http://links.org.au/node/1262>

By the Bolivarian News Agency
September 21, 2009 -- The president of the Bolivarian Republic of
Venezuela, Hugo Chavez Frias, expressed his solidarity to the people of
the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic to reach their independence from
Morocco.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1262>


     Gramsci and hegemony <http://links.org.au/node/1260>

By Trent Brown
Antonio Gramsci is an important figure in the history of Marxist theory.
While Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels provided a rigorous analysis of
capital at the social and economic levels - particularly showing how
capital antagonises the working class and gives rise to crisis - Gramsci
supplemented this with a sophisticated theory of the political realm and
how it is organically/dialectically related to social and economic
conditions. He provides us with a theory of how the proletariat must
organise politically if it is to effectively respond to capital's crises
and failures, and bring about revolutionary change.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1260>


     HIV/AIDS treatment in Cuba: a rights-based analysis; Lessons and
     challenges <http://links.org.au/node/1258>

By Tim Anderson
Cuba has achieved the lowest rate of HIV infection and the highest level
of AIDS treatment in the Caribbean region. Yet the Cuban HIV program --
part of its famous health system -- has been subjected to many
criticisms, usually linked to the themes of "freedom" and "rights."
These criticisms must be seen in the broader context of demands for
economic "freedoms" in Cuba and in the context of US demands for the
dismantling of Cuban socialism and for widespread privatisation,
including privatisation of the public health system. Outside
understandings of the Cuban health system are further undermined by the
US economic blockade of Cuba, roundly condemned each year by the United
Nations General Assembly, which prevents normal scientific and cultural
exchange between the US and Cuba.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1258>

* * *
Links seeks to promote the international exchange of information,
experience of struggle, theoretical analysis and views of political
strategy and tactics within the international left. It is a forum for
open and constructive dialogue between active socialists coming from
different political traditions. It seeks to bring together those in the
international left who are opposed to neoliberal economic and social
policies. It aims to promote the renewal of the socialist movement in
the wake of the collapse of the bureaucratic model of "actually existing
socialism" in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

ATTENTION: Sign up for regular ``what's new'' announcement emails at
http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=343373

Follow Links on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LinksSocialism



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

I read your profile today, I thought I would drop you a line and hope to become
your friend! Check my personal page here:
http://lololove.zoomshare.com/files/invite.htm

What's new at Links: Thailand, Honduras, green jobs, John Bellamy
Foster, Latin America, ecosocialism, Quebec, Muntadar al-Zaidi, free
pamphlet

* * *
Subscribe free to Links - International Journal of Socialist Renewal -
at http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=343373

You can also follow Links on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LinksSocialism

Visit and bookmark http://links.org.au and add it to your RSS feed
(http://links.org.au/rss.xml). If you would like us to
consider an article, please send it to links@...

*Please pass on to anybody you think will be interested in Links.

* * *


     Honduras: Zelaya returns -- the people celebrate
     <http://links.org.au/node/1261>

<>By Federico Fuentes, Caracas
September 21, 2009 -- "Telgucigalpa is one big party", said Dirian
Pereira, member of the international commission of the National
Resistance Front Against the Coup in Honduras, speaking to Green Left
Weekly over the phone from the Honduran capital. President Manuel
Zelaya, who was overthrown by a military coup on June 28, returned to
Honduras on September 21 and took refuge in Brazil's embassy in
Telgucigalpa.


     Honduras: Resistance front calls international solidarity conference
     <http://links.org.au/node/1254>

On behalf of the resistance in Honduras, we send combative and fraternal
greetings to all those assisting us in this process of struggle for the
restoration of constitutional order and for the installation of a
National Constituent Assembly in Honduras. The National Resistance Front
against the Coup in Honduras calls together the first internationalist
conference against the coup d'etat and for a National Constituent
Assembly in Honduras. The conference is to be held on October 8, 9 and
10, 2009 in Tegucigalpa, Honduras.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1254>


     Australian socialists demand `green jobs'
     <http://links.org.au/node/1252>

By the Socialist Alliance

[The following leaflet was distributed at the ``switch off Hazelwood''
power station protest in Victoria on September 12 and 13, attended by
more than 300 people.]
September 13, 2009 -- The transition from a fossil fuel dependent
society to renewable energy is perhaps the most urgent question facing
humanity. The public debate about climate change has shifted from a
discussion about the reality of global warming to a discussion focused
on how to transition to renewable energy.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1252>


     John Bellamy Foster: Financial crisis, imperialism and environment
     -- `Socialism is humanity's best chance' <http://links.org.au/node/1250>

A conversation with John Bellamy Foster, editor of the US-based
socialist magazine Monthly Review, professor of sociology at the
University of Oregon and co-author (with Fred Magdoff) of The Great
Financial Crisis: Causes and Consequences (Monthly Review Press, 2009).
He was interviewed by Farooque Chowdhury for the Bangladesh daily
newspaper New Age.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1250>


     Coup anniversary reveals two faces of Thailand
     <http://links.org.au/node/1257>

By Giles Ji Ungpakorn
September 21, 2009 -- On the September 19, 2009, the third anniversary
of the military coup that wrecked Thai democracy, two demonstrations
took place. They sum up the two faces of Thailand.
One demonstration, by tens of thousands of ``Red Shirts'' in Bangkok,
was organised in order to continue the demand full democracy. It was a
peaceful and friendly demonstration. The other demonstration was
organised by fascist thugs of the People's Alliance for Democracy. The
PAD are the ``Yellow Shirt'' royalists. The aim of this demonstration
was to attack Cambodian villagers living and working at an ancient
temple inside Cambodia.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1257>


     Claudio Katz on Latin America, the right and imperialism: `The
     solution to the crisis of capitalism has to be political'
     <http://links.org.au/node/1256>

Claudio Katz interviewed by Fernando Arellano Ortiz.
July 10, 2009 -- The exit from the systemic crisis of capitalism needs
to be political and "a socialist project can mature in this turbulence".
So says the Argentine economist, philosopher and sociologist Claudio
Katz, who also warns that the "global economic situation is very serious
and is going to have to hit bottom, and now we are but in the first
moment of crisis".

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1256>


     London climate justice conference: A model of ecosocialist
     collaboration <http://links.org.au/node/1255>

By Ian Angus

September 17, 2009 -- On September 12, about 100 people attended
"Climate and Capitalism", a one-day conference in London, England,
organised by Green Left and Socialist Resistance.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1255>


     Thailand: The September 19 coup, three years on
     <http://links.org.au/node/1253>

By Giles Ji Ungpakorn
On September 19, 2006, the Thai army staged a coup toppling the elected
government of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Soldiers sported yellow
royal ribbons and the military junta claimed that it was staging the
coup to protect ``democracy with the king as the head of state''. It
certainly was not protecting democracy, but most Thais believed that
this was indeed a "royal coup".

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1253>


     Britain's conquest of Quebec: 250 years later, a continuing debate
     on how the French colonisers became colonised
     <http://links.org.au/node/1251>

By Richard Fidler
September 13, 2009 -- Colonisation. Conquest. Words that even today
evoke widely varying historical memories.
Just last year Quebec City staged an elaborate round of events to
celebrate the 400th anniversary of its founding as the colonial capital
of New France. No expense was spared as federal and provincial
governments alike poured money into the city's coffers. Capping the
ceremonies were massively attended concerts by Québécoise singer Céline
Dion and former Beatle Paul McCartney -- apparently deemed emblematic
descendants of the French and British "founding peoples" of present-day
Canada. It seemed to be one great love-in of all those involved.
(Lost in all the self-congratulatory rhetoric, of course, was any
recognition that the city's site had in fact been occupied by its
Indigenous inhabitants for many centuries prior to the arrival of the
Europeans.)

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1251>


     Muntadar al-Zaidi released from jail -- Celebrate with `Sock and Awe
     <http://links.org.au/node/1249>

The Iraqi man who threw his shoes at former US President George W Bush,
has been released from jail in Baghdad. Muntadar al-Zaidi's act of
protest made him a hero in large parts of the Arab world and beyond.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1249>


     Free pamphlet: `The Labour Aristocracy: The material basis of
     opportunism in the labour movement <http://links.org.au/node/1248>

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1248>


     The rise and fall of the Communist Party of Thailand
     <http://links.org.au/node/1247>

By Pierre Rousset
September 9, 2009 -- The communist movement was first established in
Siam (renamed Thailand in 1939) mostly in the Chinese ethnic migrant
communities, then proliferated in the seemingly disparate surrounding
regions in the north, northeast and south of the country. Following a
long, difficult period of transition, the Communist Party of Thailand
(CPT), once an urban party, retreated to the jungle and engaged in armed
struggle. Its national expansion, during the 1970s, occurred while the
kingdom was transformed into a US base for military intervention in the
Vietnam War. The party eventually saw its decline during the
Sino-Indochinese conflict of 1978-9 and disappeared from sight in the
mid-1980s.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1247>

* * *
Links seeks to promote the international exchange of information,
experience of struggle, theoretical analysis and views of political
strategy and tactics within the international left. It is a forum for
open and constructive dialogue between active socialists coming from
different political traditions. It seeks to bring together those in the
international left who are opposed to neoliberal economic and social
policies. It aims to promote the renewal of the socialist movement in
the wake of the collapse of the bureaucratic model of "actually existing
socialism" in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

ATTENTION: Sign up for regular ``what's new'' announcement emails at
http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=343373

Follow Links on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LinksSocialism



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

What's new at Links: 9/11, Chile, Honduras, climate talks & Africa,
Cuba, Bolivia, Scottish SP, Paul Robeson

* * *
Subscribe free to Links - International Journal of Socialist Renewal -
at http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=343373

You can also follow Links on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LinksSocialism

Visit and bookmark http://links.org.au and add it to your RSS feed
(http://links.org.au/rss.xml). If you would like us to
consider an article, please send it to links@...

*Please pass on to anybody you think will be interested in /Links/.

* * *


     The other September 11: US backed coup in Chile, 1973
     <http://links.org.au/node/1242>

An excerpt from John Pilger's documentary The War on Democracy, which
recounts the involvement of the United States government in the brutal
1973 military coup that overthrew the democratic socialist government of
President Salvador Allende -- paradoxically on September 11. It ushered
in a regime of torture and tyranny.
Below, see director Ken Loach's moving contribution to the 11"9'01 project.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1242>


     Interview with Honduras resistance leader: `The US is sustaining the
     coup' <http://links.org.au/node/1236>

During an August 17-19, 2009, international seminar on the economic
crisis hosted by the Party of Liberty and Socialism in Sao Paolo,
Brazil, Green Left Weekly/Links International Journal of Socialist
Renewal journalists Kiraz Janicke and Federico Fuentes, together with
journalists from Marea Socialista (Venezuela) and Alternativa Socialista
(Argentina), were able to interview Gilberto Rios from the international
relations commission of the National Popular Resistance Front against
the Coup about the growing resistance movement against the US backed
coup which ousted the democratically elected president of Honduras,
Manuel Zelaya, on June 28.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1236>


     Call for a 'Seattle' approach to Copenhagen climate talks, Africans
     demand reparations <http://links.org.au/node/1233>

By Patrick Bond
September 5, 2009 - Durban -- Here's a fairly simple choice: the global
North would pay the hard-hit global South to deal with the climate
crisis, either through the complicated, corrupt, controversial ``Clean
Development Mechanism' (CDM), whose projects have plenty of damaging
sideeffects to communities, or instead pay through other mechanisms that
must provide financing quickly, transparently and decisively to achieve
genuine income compensation plus renewable energy to the masses.
The Copenhagen climate summit in December is all about the former choice.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1233>


     Hypocrisy over Cuba's `political prisoners'
     <http://links.org.au/node/1246>

By Tim Anderson
September 13, 2009 -- Political prisoners and Cuba can be a confusing
mix, in our times of mass propaganda. Three groups have attracted
international attention, over the past decade. The first group, 70 or so
(the ``dissidents''), were arrested in March 2003 by the Cuban
government and charged with taking money from a US program which aims to
overthrow the Cuban constitution. Amnesty International and many
European states, along with the US government, immediately declared them
``prisoners of conscience''. A number have since been released. The
second group of several hundred (``enemy combatants'') were collected by
the US government in Afghanistan and Pakistan over 2001-2002 and held
for many years in concentration camps at a US military base carved out
of the island of Cuba. International protest built up more slowly, and
eight years on many are still held without charge or trial.
The third group of five men (``the Cuban Five'') were arrested in the US
in 1998 and accused of being spies, for passing on information about
groups in south Florida that were preparing terrorist attacks on Cuba.
The US courts have rubber-stamped their convictions. On September 12,
2009, they completed 11 years in US jails.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1246>


     Caracas to host world meeting of left parties, October 7-9, 2009
     <http://links.org.au/node/1244>

By Federico Fuentes, Caracas
September 5, 2009 -- Caracas will play host to one of the most important
international gatherings of left parties in years, when delegates from
across the world meet for the First International Meeting of Left
Parties over October 7-9, 2009.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1244>


     Bolivia's vice-president defends MAS government's record
     <http://links.org.au/node/1241>

Interview with with Álvaro García Linera, vice-president of Bolivia, by
Maristella Svampa, Pablo Stefanoni and Ricardo Bajo, from August 2009
Bolivian edition of Le Monde Diplomatique. English translation and notes
by Richard Fidler.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1241>


     How US warmongers exploited the 9/11 terrorist attacks
     <http://links.org.au/node/1238>

By Norm Dixon
[This article was first published on September 11, 2002, on the first
anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New York and
Washington. Its observations remain relevant to this day.]

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1238>


     Declaration of the Africa People's Movement on Climate Change
     <http://links.org.au/node/1237>

Nairobi, Kenya, August 30, 2009 -- We, the leaders of various people's
movements, community-based groups, academia, NGOs and civil cociety
organisations, met in Nairobi under the banner of the People's Movement
on Climate Change (PMCC) to discuss strategies to confront the climate
change crisis for Copenhagen and beyond from August 27 to 28 , 2009.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1237>


     Eyewitness to Cuba: Report by the Scottish Socialist Party's
     delegation to Cuba <http://links.org.au/node/1235>

In February 2009 for two weeks, a nine-strong delegation from the
Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) visited Cuba at the invitation of the
Communist Party of Cuba (CPC). Bill Bonnar reports on the visit.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1235>


     Paul Robeson: `The artist must elect to fight for freedom or slavery
     <http://links.org.au/node/1234>

By Harry Targ
On September 4, 1949, an angry crowd surrounded the 20,000 friends of
Paul Robeson who had come to hear him in an open-air concert at
Peekskill, New York. After the event right-wing, anti-communist inspired
mobs attacked supporters who were leaving the event. These attacks
included smashing the windows of Pete Seeger's automobile with several
family members inside. Sixty years later we remember the great
progressive Paul Robeson, his struggles for justice, and his refusal to
bow to the politics of reaction.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1234>

* * *
Links seeks to promote the international exchange of information,
experience of struggle, theoretical analysis and views of political
strategy and tactics within the international left. It is a forum for
open and constructive dialogue between active socialists coming from
different political traditions. It seeks to bring together those in the
international left who are opposed to neoliberal economic and social
policies. It aims to promote the renewal of the socialist movement in
the wake of the collapse of the bureaucratic model of "actually existing
socialism" in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

ATTENTION: Sign up for regular ``what's new'' announcement emails at
http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=343373

Follow Links on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LinksSocialism


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

I do not want the entire group seeing these photos.Because some may recognize
me. Here's the link:
http://katielove.zoomshare.com/files/photos.htm

Enjoy babe :)

I do not want the entire group seeing these photos.Because some may recognize
me. Here's the link:
http://katielove.zoomshare.com/files/photos.htm

Enjoy babe :)

What's new at Links: Kanaky, Honduras, Venezuela, CPA & peace, Ted
Kennedy, Ayn Rand, African Americans & health, Friedrich Engels, energy
efficiency debated

* * *
Subscribe free to Links - International Journal of Socialist Renewal -
at http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=343373

You can also follow Links on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LinksSocialism

Visit and bookmark http://links.org.au and add it to your RSS feed
(http://links.org.au/rss.xml). If you would like us to
consider an article, please send it to links@...

*Please pass on to anybody you think will be interested in /Links/.

* * *


     Kanaky: Interview with jailed pro-independence trade union leader
     Gérard Jodar <http://links.org.au/node/1222>

This interview with Gérard Jodar, president of the pro-independence
trade union federation USTKE (Union of Kanak and Exploited Workers), was
published in Libération, issue #14790, on August 17 2009. He was
interviewed by Matthieu Ecoiffier. Translated into English for Links
International Journal of Socialist Renewal <http://links.org.au> by
Annolies Truman.
Sentenced at the end of June 2009 to a year in prison for ``hindering
the circulation of an aircraft'' [click HERE
<http://links.org.au/node/1199> for background information to the
struggle], Gérard Jodar is one of very few trade unionists to be
imprisoned in France -- and his lawyers' application for a lesser
sentence has just been rejected by the appeals judge of the Noumea
Supreme Court.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1222>


     Honduras: Al Giordano -- `The people are organising creatively to
     topple the coup' <http://links.org.au/node/1219>

August 26, 2009, marks 60 days since Honduras' oligarchy overthrew the
elected president of the country. As protests against the coup continue
without let up, Western governments have refused to do anything concrete
to support democracy, or as in the case of the US administration of
President Barack Obama, been complicit. The international corporate mass
media has shunned providing coverage of the mass opposition in the
streets of Tegucigalpa. This news blackout, and the resulting heightened
state repression, has done little to deter the ongoing resistance to the
coup inside Honduras.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1219>


     Photo essay: Venezuela's Comuna 'Renacer del Sur' -- people's power
     in practice <http://links.org.au/node/1211>

By Peter Boyle
August 20, 2009 -- At the base of the Bolivarian revolutionary process
in Venezuela are some 30,000 communal councils. These are pictures of
some of the people active in communal councils in poor barrios
(neighbourhoods) in the south of the city of Valencia. They were taken
in November 2008 when members of the Australian-Venezuela Solidarity
Netwok brigade were hosted by the Comuna ``Renacer del Sur'' (Rebith of
the South Commune).
Daniel Sanchez, a leader of the Rebirth of the South Commune, and Yoly
Fernandez, a community organiser in Mission Mercal, Venezuela's
subsidised food program, are touring Australia in August and September
to explain how "people's power" is transforming their country and
creating a new socialism of the 21st century.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1211>


     Industrial action for peace: The Communist Party of Australia and
     antiwar activity before 1960 <http://links.org.au/node/1224>

By Douglas Jordan
The Communist Party of Australia (CPA) emphasised the central role that
the working class through their trade unions should play in the peace
movement. The struggle for peace was as important to trade unionists as
was the struggle for improved pay and better working conditions. Central
to the party's approach was the view that trade unions had every right
to use their industrial strength to pursue a range of political issues.
In effect, this meant that trade union support for the peace movement
should not be limited to an educational and propaganda role, but where
possible it should include the use of traditional trade union tactics,
such as strikes, bans and boycotts. In the postwar period, with the
apparent imminent threat of a third world war, there were new
opportunities to implement this policy.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1224>


     United States: Ted Kennedy -- The myth of the `liberal lion'
     <http://links.org.au/node/1223>

By Lance Selfa
August 28, 2009 -- Democratic Party senator Ted Kennedy's political
career reflects the course of US liberalism, from its heyday in the
1960s to its sorry state today. For decades, Ted Kennedy was the
bogeyman used by conservatives in their fundraising appeals to raise
millions of dollars. To them, the liberal Kennedy seemed to represent
everything they hated--there was no easier way to get a right-wing crowd
booing and hissing than to mention Kennedy's name.
So it was more than a little jarring to hear conservatives sing
Kennedy's praises for his "bipartisanship" in the wake of Kennedy's
death from brain cancer on August 25.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1223>


     The free-market fallacies of Ayn Rand <http://links.org.au/node/1221>

By Phil Hearse
August 22, 2009 -- Most people sympathetic to radical politics outside
the United States have probably never heard of Ayn Rand, and a brief
introduction to her ultra pro-free market views would doubtless be
enough to convince them they haven't missed anything. Yet 27 years after
her death, Ayn Rand continues to be seriously debated in the US, her
books sell hundreds of thousands each year, her views are propagated by
right wing think tanks and foundations and - bizarrely - Charlize Theron
is in discussions to turn Rand's 1088-page magnus opus Atlas Shrugged
into a TV mini-series.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1221>


     United States: Race and class -- African Americans in a sick system
     <http://links.org.au/node/1220>

By Malik Miah
August 2009 -- The critical lack of quality and affordable health care
is devastating for African Americans. Twice as likely as whites to go
without health insurance, African Americans suffer chronic illnesses
such as high blood pressure and diabetes at an escalating rate. The root
of the problem is not inferior Black -- or better white -- health care.
It is first and foremost a class issue, exacerbated for Blacks and
Latinos because of the institutional racism that still permeates society.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1220>


     New books reveal Friedrich Engels' revolutionary life
     <http://links.org.au/node/1218>

Engels: A Revolutionary Life, by John Green, Artery Publications, 2008.
Marx's General: The Revolutionary Life of Friedrich Engels, by Tristram
Hunt, Macmillan/Metropolitan, 2009. (First published in Britain as The
Frock-Coated Communist: The Revolutionary Life of Friedrich Engels.)
Reviewed by Ian Angus

August 24, 2009 -- Most people on the left know that Friedrich Engels
was co-author of the Communist Manifesto and Karl Marx's lifelong
collaborator. But few of today's radicals know much more than that about
the man who built barricades and fought a guerrilla war in Germany in
the 1848-49 revolution, the indefatigable organiser who played a
decisive role in building the Marxist current from a handful of exiles
in the 1850s into the dominant trend in the international working-class
movement by the time of his death in 1895.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1218>


     The false promise of energy efficiency and a real alternative
     <http://links.org.au/node/1217>

By Don Fitz
August 22, 2009 -- An action can have opposite effects, depending on it
s social contexts. An isolated individual who protests company policy by
refusing to go to work could well get fired and become an example used
to intimidate others. When an entire workforce stays off the job, it's
called a "strike" and has a very good chance of forcing the company to
change its policy... It is even more so with "energy efficiency". It is
impossible for individual choices to purchase energy-efficient products
to have any positive effect on climate change. But, in a democratically
run economy, energy efficiency would be a cornerstone of resolving the
catastrophic legacy of production for profit.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1217>

* * *
Links seeks to promote the international exchange of information,
experience of struggle, theoretical analysis and views of political
strategy and tactics within the international left. It is a forum for
open and constructive dialogue between active socialists coming from
different political traditions. It seeks to bring together those in the
international left who are opposed to neoliberal economic and social
policies. It aims to promote the renewal of the socialist movement in
the wake of the collapse of the bureaucratic model of "actually existing
socialism" in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

ATTENTION: Sign up for regular ``what's new'' announcement emails at
http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=343373

Follow Links on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LinksSocialism


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

What's new at Links: Green jobs, Venezuela, Honduras, Cory Aquino & the
left, new Pakistan book, Malaysia, US health, population and climate

* * *
Subscribe free to Links - International Journal of Socialist Renewal -
at http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=343373

You can also follow Links on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LinksSocialism

Visit and bookmark http://links.org.au and add it to your RSS feed
(http://links.org.au/rss.xml). If you would like us to
consider an article, please send it to links@...

*Please pass on to anybody you think will be interested in /Links/.

* * *


     Lucas Aerospace -- When workers said `no' to military production,
     `yes' to green jobs <http://links.org.au/node/1216>

By Rob Marsden
August 22, 2009 -- Socialist Resistance -- Today, the twin drivers of
economic recession and the possibility of catastrophic climate change
are beginning to push working people towards action. A series of
small-scale but high-profile occupations of threatened factories, not
just at Vestas wind turbine plant but also at Visteon car plant, where
600 workers took on the might of Ford and won a greatly enhanced
redundancy package, show what is possible. In the 1970s workers at
Britain's Lucas Aerospace went even further. We look back at the lessons
of Lucas Aerospace.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1216>


     Photo essay: Venezuela's Comuna 'Renacer del Sur' -- people's power
     in practice <http://links.org.au/node/1211>

By Peter Boyle
August 20, 2009 -- At the base of the Bolivarian revolutionary process
in Venezuela are some 30,000 communal councils. These are pictures of
some of the people active in communal councils in poor barrios
(neighbourhoods) in the south of the city of Valencia. They were taken
in November 2008 when members of the Australian-Venezuela Solidarity
Netwok brigade were hosted by the Comuna ``Renacer del Sur'' (Rebith of
the South Commune).
Daniel Sanchez, a leader of the Rebirth of the South Commune, and Yoly
Fernandez, a community organiser in Mission Mercal, Venezuela's
subsidised food program, are touring Australia in August and September
to explain how "people's power" is transforming their country and
creating a new socialism of the 21st century.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1211>


     Melbourne, August 28-29: Latin America Solidarity Conference 2009
     <http://links.org.au/node/1166>

People´s Power is changing the world
Latin America Solidarity Conference 2009
August 28-29, 2009 - Victorian Trades Hall, Melbourne, Australia
http://www.solidarityconference2009.org
<http://www.solidarityconference2009.org/>

Major cracks are appearing in the global capitalist system - cracks that
are being forced open by the tide of rebellions and revolutions across
Latin America.

Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1166>


     Win a trip to Venezuela! Drawn on August 30, 2009
     <http://links.org.au/node/971>

Win a trip to Venezuela!

...and strengthen the solidarity movement with Venezuela's revolution

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/971>


     Honduras: pre-revolutionary situation? <http://links.org.au/node/1215>

By Ricardo Arturo Salgado, translated by Felipe Stuart Cournoyer
August 22, 2009 -- Pre-revolutionary situation? Some analyses of the
situation in Honduras are fairly static. We have to differ with many
local and foreign analysts who have tried to understand the situation in
Honduras by imposing pre-existing parameters and by using basic concepts
of the Marxist dialectic without any scientific criterion. Many have
seen a failure of the Honduran grassroots resistance, failing to
understand that historical materialism is not a mathematical formula
where only variables change, but rather, a way to interpret reality
objectively.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1215>


     The Philippines left and Corazon Aquino <http://links.org.au/node/1214>

By Reihana Mohideen
August 14, 2009 - Former president of the Philippines Corazon Aquino
died on August 1. Following the 1983 assassination of Benigno Aquino,
her husband, Cory Aquino became the Philippine's leading bourgeois
opposition figure to the US-backed dictator Ferdinand Marcos. She stood
against Marcos in the 1986 presidential election. After Marcos was
proclaimed the winner of the blatantly rigged election, a mass uprising
- dubbed the ``people power revolution'' -- overthrew Marcos and Aquino
became president. She was in office from 1986 to 1992.
The Philippines left's reaction to the death of Corazon Aquino has been
intriguing.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1214>


     Pakistan: Farooq Tariq's new book `Facing the Musharraf
     Dictatorship' (free download) <http://links.org.au/node/1213>

Below is spokesperson for the Labour Party Pakistan Farooq Tariq's
introduction to his new book, Facing the Musharraf Dictatorship: An
Activist's Narrative. Following that is the preface by Peter Boyle,
national secretary of the Democratic Socialist Perspective of Australia.
Facing the Musharraf Dictatorship is available from Good Books Lahore.
Email goodbooks_1 [at] yahoo.com to order a hard copy. You can also
download the entire 300-page PDF file at the end of the two articles below.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1213>


     Honduras: Asking the right questions to reach better answers
     <http://links.org.au/node/1212>

By Ricardo Arturo Salgado, translated from the Spanish by Felipe Stuart
Cournoyer
August 21, 2009 -- Tegucigalpa -- A lot has been written on the Honduran
situation, more in solidarity with opposition to the coup than in favour
of it. The media seems to feed on scandalous news -- no blood, no news.
Unless what's involved is a people on the way to liberation...

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1212>


     United States: Healthcare `town hall' meeting a charade of democracy
     <http://links.org.au/node/1210>

By Billy Wharton
August 19, 2009 -- The were two big winners at the recent "town hall"
healthcare meeting held in the North Bronx, New York City, neighbourhood
of Parkchester on August 17 - the lunatic right wing and the private
health insurance industry. These victories came despite the fact that
the vast majority of those who lined up to participate in the meeting
supported either a single-payer system or a public option. Most came
away disappointed. I got kicked out.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1210>


     Climate change: Why population is not the problem
     <http://links.org.au/node/1209>

By Jess Moore
August 9, 2009 -- We face a climate crisis and something needs to
change. The world's resources are finite, as is the amount of
destruction humans can do to the planet if we are to survive. There is a
debate in the environment movement about whether or not curbing
population is an essential part of the solution. We have a decade, maybe
a decade and a half, to transform our current relationship with the
planet. Of course, the starting point for environmentalists cannot be
solutions. We first need to identify the cause of the crisis before we
can know how to fight it.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1209>


     Malaysia: People's power defeats evictions at Kampung Buah Pala --
     for now <http://links.org.au/node/1208>

By the Socialist Party of Malaysia
August 13, 2009 -- Pulau Pinang, Malaysia -- Today was the moment of
truth for Kampung Buah Pala villagers. It was the third time that their
homes have faced demolition. But it was the first time that the local
villagers outnumbered the outsiders who were the majority during the
previous attempt on August 4. Today, when the police, the developer and
the bailiff came, the villagers did not have the luxury of the presence
of state assemblymen, MPs, the state government representative or even
lawyers. Only a handful of Socialist Party of Malaysia (PSM, Parti
Sosialis Malaysia) members and Hindraf [a civil rights organisation]
supporters were with the villagers.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1208>


     The coup in Honduras, ALBA and the English-speaking Caribbean
     <http://links.org.au/node/1207>

By Faiz Ahmed
The military coup carried out by masked soldiers in the early hours of
June 28 against the democratically elected President of Honduras, José
Manuel Zelaya Rosales, was a bandit act with differing messages intended
for different audiences. One such audience is the oligarchical groupings
throughout the hemisphere, who will be emboldened by Washington's tacit
tolerance of the coup makers. Another audience is the Latin American
leftist and popular governments, who are being told that their agendas
can be trumped by non-democratic means. And there is yet another
audience: the predominantly English-speaking Caribbean governments who,
like Zelaya, are far from ideologically opposed to capitalism, but are
aware of their inability to improve the overall quality of life of their
societies within capitalism's current configuration.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1207>

* * *
Links seeks to promote the international exchange of information,
experience of struggle, theoretical analysis and views of political
strategy and tactics within the international left. It is a forum for
open and constructive dialogue between active socialists coming from
different political traditions. It seeks to bring together those in the
international left who are opposed to neoliberal economic and social
policies. It aims to promote the renewal of the socialist movement in
the wake of the collapse of the bureaucratic model of "actually existing
socialism" in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

ATTENTION: Sign up for regular ``what's new'' announcement emails at
http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=343373

Follow Links on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LinksSocialism


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

What's new at Links: Venezuela, Peterloo, US healthcare, Woodstock,
Arabic, Pakistan, Kanaky, sustainability, Vietnam, Clinton & Africa

* * *
Subscribe free to Links - International Journal of Socialist Renewal -
at http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=343373

You can also follow Links on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LinksSocialism

Visit and bookmark http://links.org.au and add it to your RSS feed
(http://links.org.au/rss.xml). If you would like us to
consider an article, please send it to links@...

*Please pass on to anybody you think will be interested in /Links/.

* * *


     Green Left Weekly -- Support people's power media!
     <http://links.org.au/node/1202>

Green Left Weekly is a people's power alternative media project. It is
Australia's leading socialist publication, with unmatched international
analysis. The internet gives it a global reach, but unfortunately that
doesn't pay the bills! Many of its readers and writers are brought
together from many corners of the world. The level or support and
respect that Green Left Weekly has generated over the years was on show
with the many messages of congratulations it received during the
celebrations of the paper's 800th issue. Please help write for,
distribute and support it!

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1202>


     Venezuela: Socialist party prepares for 'transition to socialism';
     PSUV discussion document <http://links.org.au/node/1197>

By Federico Fuentes, Caracas
August 8, 2009 -- On August 1, United Socialist Party of Venezuela
(PSUV) members across the country participated in 1556 local assemblies
to discuss the reorganisation of the party's base into local
``patrols''. This push to strengthen revolutionary organising comes at a
time when attacks on Venezuela's revolutionary process revolution "from
outside and within have intensified", Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez,
also president of the PSUV, said on August 4. After his re-election in
the December 2006 presidential elections, Chavez issued a call to build
a "new party... from the base" and at the service "of the people and the
revolution, at the service of socialism".

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1197>


     Win a trip to Venezuela! Drawn on August 30, 2009
     <http://links.org.au/node/971>

Win a trip to Venezuela!

...and strengthen the solidarity movement with Venezuela's revolution

     * Enter here <http://links.org.au/node/971>


     The 1819 `Peterloo' massacre: class struggle in the Industrial
     Revolution <http://links.org.au/node/1206>

By Graham Milner
August 16, 2009 -- The Industrial Revolution began in England, and the
emergence of the industrial working class brought to the fore a new
social and political force in world history. The bloody events of 190
years ago, on August 16, 1819, when a mass workers' protest in
Manchester demanding political reform and labour rights was broken up by
the army, with considerable loss of life, stand out as a stark warning
to socialist activists everywhere that the ruling classes will react
with violence and terror when their power and privileges are challenged.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1206>


     United States: Industry-backed opponents of healthcare reform react
     with racism, violence <http://links.org.au/node/1205>

By Don Fitz
August 14, 2009 -- St. Louis -- Did you hear about the town hall meeting
in St. Louis on August 6, where union thugs attacked a black
conservative and sent him to the hospital with multiple injuries? Well,
it didn't happen exactly like that. In fact, events were the opposite of
what talk show hosts Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly broadcast and what
the corporate media relayed across the US.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1205>


     Woodstock 40 years ago: Country Joe McDonald's and Jimi Hendrix's
     antiwar classics <http://links.org.au/node/1204>

40 years ago -- from August 15 to August 18, 1969 -- hundreds of
thousands of young people gathered for three days of ``peace, love and
music''. In the midst of the mass movement against the Vietnam War and
the youth radicalisation it unleashed, oppostion to US imperialism's
slaughter in Vietnam was personified by the performances of Country Joe
McDonald's ``Feel Like I'm Fixin' to Die' Rag'' and Jimi Hendrix's
searing anti-patriotic ``Star-Spangled banner'' (below, press ``Read
more'' to watch).

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1204>


     The Flame, August 2009 -- Green Left Weekly's Arabic-language
     supplement <http://links.org.au/node/1203>

With the help of Socialist Alliance members in the growing Sudanese
community in Australia, Green Left Weekly -- Australia's leading
socialist newspaper -- is publishing a regular Arabic language
supplement. The Flame covers news from the Arabic-speaking world as well
as news and issues from within Australia.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1203>


     Pakistan: Why was Tariq Mehmood was arrested? Demand his release!
     <http://links.org.au/node/1201>

By Farooq Tariq
On August 9, 2009, Tariq Mehmood, a human rights activists and general
secretary of the Labour Party Pakistan (LPP) in the Toba Tek Singh
district issued a press release to the journalists in Toba Tek Singh. He
alleged that eight Christian women were raped by Muslim fanatics in an
attack on Korian village in Gojra Tehsil on July 28 attack. He also
alleged that 40 women are still missing and no clue is yet found about
their whereabouts. He condemned this atrocious and horrific act and
demanded the government to probe the case. More than 60 houses were
burnt by fanatics in the village on the accusation of blasphemy. This
act led to another attack on Gojra Christian community and nine people
were burnt alive.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1201>


     Australia: ABC TV's `Foreign Correspondent' program censors
     Venezuela's majority <http://links.org.au/node/1200>

By the Australia-Venezuela Solidarity Network
August 12, 2009 -- The Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Foreign
Correspondent current affairs TV program screened on August 11, titled
"Hugo Chavez: Total Control" did nothing to shore up the ABC's
reputation for well-informed, accurate reporting. Eric Campbell's report
from Venezuela was riddled with inaccuracies, half-truths and
transparent biases that need to be corrected.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1200>


     Petition: Appeal for the immediate release of USTKE trade unionists
     in Kanaky <http://links.org.au/node/1199>

August 12, 2009 -- On August 6, a general strike in Kanaky (or the
French overseas territory of New Caledonia) was called off after an
accord between the trade union confederation USTKE (Federation of Unions
of Kanak Workers and the Exploited) and Air Caledonia was finally signed
by the airline. The signing of the accord, which had been negotiated on
June 11, put an end to 10 days of demonstrations, roadblocks and violent
confrontations with police, motivated as much by a desire for
independence and decolonisation, as by the issue of industrial justice.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1199>


     Sustainability: utopian and scientific <http://links.org.au/node/1198>

By Mark Burton
To make the move to a sustainable future where people are no longer
threatened by an ecological catastrophe will require a number of things
-- above all a strong and broad movement with effective and intelligent
leadership and an accurate understanding of the current problems and how
they can be overcome. Sadly, only some parts of this constellation of
forces are in place today.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1198>


     Vietnam: Chemical companies, US authorities knew the dangers of
     Agent Orange <http://links.org.au/node/1195>

By Jon Dillingham
August 10, 2009, was the first Orange Day organised in Vietnam -- not
only to be remembered by victims of Agent Orange but to mark Vietnam's
common pain. Those responsible for exposing Vietnamese citizens and US
troops to toxic defoliants kept silent about known health implications,
a review of documents finds.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1195>


     Hillary Clinton in Africa: Promoting US corporate and military
     interests <http://links.org.au/node/1194>

By Firoze Manji
August 6, 2009 -- International media attention is focused on the August
3-14 visit of the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, to seven
countries in Africa. Judging by the behaviour of representatives of many
African governments, there are great expectations that this visit --
following so closely after US President Barack Obama's two earlier
visits to Egypt and Ghana this year -- holds out vast hope for Africa.
But what is the significance of Clinton's visit? Does it really hold out
hope for Africa? There are three dimensions to this visit: The African
Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA); oil and natural resource
exploitation; and security.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1194>

* * *
Links seeks to promote the international exchange of information,
experience of struggle, theoretical analysis and views of political
strategy and tactics within the international left. It is a forum for
open and constructive dialogue between active socialists coming from
different political traditions. It seeks to bring together those in the
international left who are opposed to neoliberal economic and social
policies. It aims to promote the renewal of the socialist movement in
the wake of the collapse of the bureaucratic model of "actually existing
socialism" in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

ATTENTION: Sign up for regular ``what's new'' announcement emails at
http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=343373

Follow Links on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LinksSocialism


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

What's new at Links: Honduras, Vestas sit-in, Ssangyong sit-in, John
Bellamy Foster, Venezuelan media freedom, Irish Greens, Hiroshima

* * *
Subscribe free to Links - International Journal of Socialist Renewal -
at http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=343373

You can also follow Links on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LinksSocialism

Visit and bookmark http://links.org.au and add it to your RSS feed
(http://links.org.au/rss.xml). If you would like us to
consider an article, please send it to links@...

*Please pass on to anybody you think will be interested in /Links/.

* * *


     Britain: Vestas workers end occupation, but `the campaign is
     anything but over' <http://links.org.au/node/1190>

August 7, 2009 -- The Vestas workers' occupation of the Newport [Isle of
Wight wind turbine] plant occupation may be over, but the campaign is
very definitely not. In fact, ... "it's just getting going"! Vestas'
doings will still be disrupted as they go about attempting to ``tie up''
business on the Isle of Wight. Workers, activists and locals remain
wholly committed, in ever-growing numbers, to the campaign to save the
green-collar jobs in Newport and Southampton.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1190>


     South Korea: Ssangyong workers occupy plant, win partial victory --
     Class war in midst of economic crisis <http://links.org.au/node/1187>

By Young-su Won
August 6, 2009 -- After days of harsh and inhumane assaults by riot
police and company thugs on striking workers occupying the Ssangyong
Motor plant in Pyeongtaek, near Seoul, the Korean Metal Workers Union
(KMWU) and management reached an agreement: the union accepted part of
the company's redundancy proposal, saving about half the strikers' jobs,
while the rest will apply for voluntary retirement or unpaid long-term
leave, or accept another job with the spin-off company.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1187>


     Venezuela: `The democratisation of the mass media has begun'
     <http://links.org.au/node/1182>

By Kiraz Janicke
Caracas, August 3, 2009 -- The head of Venezuela's telecommunications
agency (CONATEL) and minister of housing and infrastructure Diosdado
Cabello announced on August 1 the immediate closure of 32 privately
owned radio stations and two regional television stations, because their
broadcast licences had expired or they had violated regulations. Cabello
said the recovered licences would be handed to the community media. The
minister said many of the stations were operating illegally and had
failed to register or pay fees to CONATEL. Decisions are still pending
on a further 206 stations.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1182>


     John Bellamy Foster: `The transition to socialism and the transition
     to an ecological society are one' (with video)
     <http://links.org.au/node/1193>

The Ecological Revolution: Making Peace with the Planet
By John Bellamy Foster
Review by Simon Butler
Karl Marx and Frederick Engels famously urged the world's workers to
unite because they had a world to win, and nothing to lose but their
chains. Today, the reality of climate change and worsening environmental
breakdowns globally adds a further vital dimension to this strident
vision of human liberation. We still have a world to win -- but we also
have a world to lose. The ecological crisis is not simply the result of
poor planning or bad decisions. Nor is it an unforeseeable accident.
It's the inevitable outcome of an unjust economic and social system that
puts business profits before all else -- even as it undermines the
natural basis of life itself. With his previous books, such as Marx's
Ecology and The Vulnerable Planet, and as the editor of the US-based
Marxist journal Monthly Review, John Bellamy Foster has established a
well-earned reputation as one of the world's most persuasive voices
arguing for fundamental social change to tackle the looming ecological
catastrophe. His new book, The Ecological Revolution, could not have
been published at a more timely moment. It argues a solution to the
ecological crisis "is now either revolutionary or it is false".

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1193>


     Honduras coup: Dress rehearsal for imperial coups across Latin
     America <http://links.org.au/node/1192>

By Felipe Stuart Cournoyer
August 8, 2009 -- The people of Honduras have now suffered more than 40
days of military rule. The generals' June 28 coup, crudely re-packaged
in constitutional guise, ousted the country's elected government and
unleashed severe, targeted and relentless repression. Grassroots
protests have matched the regime in endurance and outmatched it in
political support within the country and internationally. Its scope and
duration is unprecedented in Honduran history. Popular resistance is the
main factor affecting the international forces attempting to shape the
outcome of the crisis. It weighs heavily on the minds of the coup's
authors and their international backers.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1192>


     The rise and fall of the Irish Greens <http://links.org.au/node/1191>

By Joseph Healy
August 8, 2009 -- Being Irish, one of the thousands who left the country
during the 1980s economic crisis, I follow Irish politics closely. I
joined the Green Party of England and Wales in 2002. In 2006, as part of
a group of Irish Greens members in London, visited Dublin to make
contact with the Irish Green Party. We went to raise the issue of
support for the Irish diaspora in Britain.We met one of the party's TDs
(members of the parliament, the Dail) John Gormley. However, it quickly
became apparent that he was not very interested in the issue of Irish
people abroad, probably because we have no votes to offer him.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1191>


     Honduras: Resistance front calls for boycott of the
     military-business dictatorship; Global day of action called for
     August 11 <http://links.org.au/node/1188>

August 3, 2009 -- Tegucigalpa -- June 28 of the this year when the
Honduran population was preparing to participate in a popular opinion
poll on ... whether or not to convoke a Constitutional Assembly,
thousands of soldiers kidnapped the constitutional president of the
republic, Manuel Zelaya Rosales, and they expelled him to the
neighbouring country of Costa Rica; they occupied the Presidential
House; they violently closed all of the independent radio and television
stations; they persecuted all the functionaries of the government and
they implanted a state of siege in the whole country.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1188>


     Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Worst single terror attacks in history
     <http://links.org.au/node/1186>

By Norm Dixon
August 6 and August 9 2009 mark the 64th anniversaries of the US
atomic-bomb attacks on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. A
tiny group of US rulers met secretly in Washington and callously ordered
this indiscriminate annihilation of civilian populations. They gave no
explicit warnings. They rejected all alternatives, preferring to inflict
the most extreme human carnage possible. They ordered and had carried
out the two worst single terror acts in human history.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1186>


     (Updated Aug. 6) Vestas workers: `Fight for green jobs not over ...
     Change should be made for the people, not for money'
     <http://links.org.au/node/1185>

August 5, 6pm, 2009 -- With Mike Godley having left yesterday, we spoke
to Mark, one of the six who are still inside at the Vestas sit-in. We
discussed how they had to reorganise themselves now four people have
left. He said that that morale was still good and how they'll "still be
fighting Vestas".

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1185>


     (Updated August 5) South Korea: Graphic photos, video -- Ssangyong
     sit-in workers' appeal: `Our lives are at stake'
     <http://links.org.au/node/1184>

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1184>


     The Economist forced to back down over lies on Venezuela and Bolivia
     <http://links.org.au/node/1183>

By Francisco Dominguez
August 3, 2009 -- The July 18, 2009, edition of The Economist contained
an article on Bolivia ("Bolivia's divisive president. The Permanent
Campaign") which asserted that, "Venezuelan troops helped quell a
rebellion centred on the airport at Santa Cruz in the east in 2007". The
article did not bother to substantiate such a serious charge against
Venezuela and was one of several unjustified and unsubstantiated
allegations against the president and government of Bolivia.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1183>


     Wave of workplace occupations aims to reverse tide of closures;
     August 5: Thomas Cook workers arrested <http://links.org.au/node/1181>

By Richie Venton
August 2, 2009 -- A rash of factory and workplace occupations is
spreading across the globe as workers defy the brutal consequences of
the recession. Instead of surrendering to mass redundancies and outright
closures - sometimes at a few minutes' notice, often without even
redundancy packages - workers are occupying their workplaces as a
central method of struggling for justice. Every example that wins
concessions is boosting the belief of workers at other workplaces that
there is an alternative to just resigning to the butchery in the
boardrooms - that belligerent, militant class action can win at least
something where workers have nothing to lose.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1181>

* * *
Links seeks to promote the international exchange of information,
experience of struggle, theoretical analysis and views of political
strategy and tactics within the international left. It is a forum for
open and constructive dialogue between active socialists coming from
different political traditions. It seeks to bring together those in the
international left who are opposed to neoliberal economic and social
policies. It aims to promote the renewal of the socialist movement in
the wake of the collapse of the bureaucratic model of "actually existing
socialism" in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

ATTENTION: Sign up for regular ``what's new'' announcement emails at
http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=343373

Follow Links on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LinksSocialism


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

What's new at Links: Venezuela, Pacific & climate, Vestas sit-in,
nationalise coal!, Honduras, Malaysia, Europe, Zimbabwe, Holocaust,
Jonah Raskin book excerpt

***
Subscribe free to Links - International Journal of Socialist Renewal -
at http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=343373

You can also follow Links on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LinksSocialism

Visit and bookmark http://links.org.au and add it to your RSS feed
(http://links.org.au/rss.xml). If you would like us to
consider an article, please send it to links@...

*Please pass on to anybody you think will be interested in /Links/.

* * *


     Venezuela: Class struggle intensifies over battle for workers'
     control <http://links.org.au/node/1177>

By Federico Fuentes
Caracas -- July 25, 2009 -- On July 22, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez
again declared his complete support for the proposal by industrial
workers for a new model of production based on workers' control. This
push from Chavez, part of the socialist revolution, aims at transforming
Venezuela's basic industry. However, it faces resistance from within the
state bureaucracy and the revolutionary movement. Presenting his
government's "Plan Socialist Guayana 2009-2019", Chavez said the
state-owned companies in basic industry have to be transformed into
"socialist companies".

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1177>


     Pacific islanders struggle for survival against global warming --
     `Rich countries must slash emissions now'
     <http://links.org.au/node/1173>

July 29, 2009 -- For Pacific islanders, climate change is not a threat
looming somewhere in the future. Rising sea levels and unpredictable
weather are having devastating effects right now. Climate change has
already forced some communities to leave their traditional homes.Simon
Butler spoke to two climate change activists from the Pacific about
their campaign for immediate cuts to global greenhouse emissions.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1173>


     (Updated August 3) Capitalism vs the environment: Wind turbine
     workers fight factory closure with sit-in
     <http://links.org.au/node/1168>

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1168>


     Public ownership of coal industry needed to move to 100% renewable
     energy and retain jobs <http://links.org.au/node/1180>

Graham Brown is a retired coalminer and a climate change activist. He's
also a member of the Upper Hunter branch of the NSW Greens party. The
Hunter Valley, near the city of Newcastle, is a major source of
Australia's coal exports. Brown is helping build a union and community
alliance to create a "just transition" to a carbon-neutral economy. Such
a transition would ensure workers in the coal industry move into
alternative employment. Socialist Alliance's Zane Alcorn spoke to Brown.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1180>


     With Honduras, with all of Latin America -- sign the statement
     <http://links.org.au/node/1179>

July 31, 2009 -- We, the undersigned social, political and solidarity
organisations, faced with the ongoing coup d'état in Honduras and the
imperialist project of installing military bases in Colombia whose
objective is to throttle the hope for liberty and emancipation across
the Latin American continent, declare:

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1179>


     Malaysia: 40,000 demand `Abolish the Internal Security Act now!',
     hundreds arrested <http://links.org.au/node/1178>

By S. Arutchelvan

August 1, 2009 -- Parti Sosialis Malaysia -- The 40,000-strong
mobilisation today in Kuala Lumpur and the thousands who did not make it
because of police roadblocks gave a very clear and precise message to
Malaysia's Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak: repeal the draconian
Internal Security Act (ISA).

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1178>


     A balance sheet of the European elections
     <http://links.org.au/node/1176>

By François Sabado
The principal lessons of the European elections of June 7, 2009, are the
following: massive abstention; progress for the right flanked by the far
right; a collapse of social democracy; an increase in the votes for the
ecologists; while the radical left, left reformists and anti-capitalists
maintained their position, without making new advances, except in
Portugal and Ireland.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1176>


     For jobs and the environment: Why the workers occupied the Vestas
     wind turbine plant <http://links.org.au/node/1175>

Below is the text of a speech written by a Vestas worker for delivery at
trade union and environmental movement meetings. It gives an excellent
insight into the background of the struggle, and its wider political
significance.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1175>


     Zimbabwe: Interviews -- The struggle for a people-driven
     constitution <http://links.org.au/node/1174>

July 25, 2009 -- The first All-Stakeholders' Conference aimed at
drafting a new constitution in Zimbabwe was held in Harare on July
13-14. The constitutional reform process is the result of the agreement
reached between President Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National
Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) and the Movement for Democratic Change
(MDC), when they formed a power-sharing government in February 2009...
Many in the pro-democracy movement believe the constitutional reform
process is dominated by politicians and will fail to incorporate the
demands of ordinary Zimbabweans suffering worst from the country's
social and economic crisis.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1174>


     The Holocaust: `May history attest to us' -- resistance,
     collaboration and survival <http://links.org.au/node/1172>

Hitler's Priests, by Kevin Spicer, Northern Illinois University Press,
2008, 369 pp. US$34.95 Who Will Write Our History? Emanuel Ringelblum,
the Warsaw Ghetto, and the Oyneg Shabes Archive, by Samuel D. Kassow,
Indiana University Press, 2007, 523 pP., US$34.95 Kasztner's Train: the
True Story of an Unknown Hero of the Holocaust, by Anna Porter, Scribe,
2008, 548 pp., A$32.95 The Complete Maus: A Survivor's Tale, Art
Spiegelman, Pantheon, 1996, 296 pp., US$35.
Review by Barry Healy
July 28, 2009 -- In October 2008 the Catholic Synod of Bishops convened
in Rome for a four-day theological discussion. Without warning, on the
first day, Pope Benedict XVI suspended discussion and ordered the 200
participants to attend a special commemoration mass for Pius XII, who
was the pope between 1939 and 1958.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1172>


     Exclusive excerpt from Jonah Raskin's `The Mythology of Imperialism'
     -- `Kipling's Contrasts' <http://links.org.au/node/1171>

[With the permission of Monthly Review Press, Links International
Journal of Socialist Renewal is making available an exclusive excerpt
from Jonah Raskin's The Mythology of Imperialism: A Revolutionary
Critique of British Literature and Society in the Modern Age. A PDF
file, available to read or download, of Chapter 2, ``Kipling's
Contrasts'' is below. Readers of Links International Journal of
Socialist Renewal are encouraged to purchase The Mythology of
Imperialism from the Monthly Review Press website.]

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1171>

* * *
Links seeks to promote the international exchange of information,
experience of struggle, theoretical analysis and views of political
strategy and tactics within the international left. It is a forum for
open and constructive dialogue between active socialists coming from
different political traditions. It seeks to bring together those in the
international left who are opposed to neoliberal economic and social
policies. It aims to promote the renewal of the socialist movement in
the wake of the collapse of the bureaucratic model of "actually existing
socialism" in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

ATTENTION: Sign up for regular ``what's new'' announcement emails at
http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=343373

Follow Links on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LinksSocialism


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Does communism in China better control the excesses of capitalism, i.e.
war-mongering in Iraq for oil, and the excessive greed of bankers and
politicians, which has caused a world recession and untold suffering?

What's new at Links: Cuba, Honduras, Wind workers sit-in, Korean workers
sit-in, Bolivia, Venezuela doco, Africa, Canada, US health, drought and
climate, Swaziland

***
Subscribe free to Links - International Journal of Socialist Renewal -
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     Cuba -- How the workers and peasants made the revolution
     <http://links.org.au/node/1170>

July 26, 2009, marks the 56th anniversary of the guerrilla attack on the
Moncada military barracks by revolutionaries led by Fidel Castro in
1953, viewed by Cubans as the start of the revolution. 2009 is also the
50th anniversary year of the triumph of the Cuban Revolution.
Chris Slee, author of Cuba: How the Workers & Peasants Made the
Revolution
<http://www.resistancebooks.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=32_51&products_id\
=776>
(Resistance Books, 2008), explains how the revolution was made and
defended by Cuba's working people.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1170>


     Honduras: Defying regime, Zelaya attempts return; Interview with
     President Manuel `Mel' Zelaya <http://links.org.au/node/1169>

By Felipe Stuart Cournoyer

Update, July 24, 2009 --  Today, Honduras has been totally paralysed by
a general strike, and Honduran resistance activists and protesters are
chanting, Zelaya - get used to it. The people are rising up (it rhymes
in Spanish)
Also common is the resistenCia, resistenCia, resistenCia, el pueblo
unido jamas sera vencido (people united will never be overcome) and so
on... This afternoon Zelaya crossed over the frontier at Las Manos north
of Esteli. He stood technically just inside Honduran territory, having
crossed the chain separating the two countries in the "neutral" strip
between them. Zelaya remained there for about two hours, hoping to meet
up with members of his family and others who were trying to join him.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1169>


     (Updated July 27) Capitalism vs the environment: Wind turbine
     workers fight factory closure with sit-in
     <http://links.org.au/node/1168>

July 22, 2009 -- The madness of the capitalist market has yet again been
starkly exposed as -- in the midst of the planet's worst environmental
crisis, global warming -- workers at Britain's only factory building
wind turbines have been forced to occupy their plant to prevent its
closure and save their jobs.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1168>


     (Updated July 27) South Korea: Ssangyong workers face brutal
     police/thug attacks as factory occupation continues
     <http://links.org.au/node/1165>

July 22, 2009 -- The strike and factory occupation by workers at
Ssangyong, in Pyeongtaek near Seoul, South Korea, is about the enter its
eighth week. About 800 fired employees are in a paint shop, confronting
more than 3000 police.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1165>


     Raúl Prada Alcoreza: Analysis of Bolivia's New Political
     Constitution of the State <http://links.org.au/node/1167>

The following article by Raúl Prada Alcoreza was originally published in
the first issue (June 2008) of Crítica y Emancipación, a biannual Latin
American journal of the social sciences. This translation from the
Spanish, by Shana Yael Shubs and Ruth Felder, was published this year in
a complete English-language version of the journal's first issue. It was
distributed at the recent congress of the Latin American Studies
Association, held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in June.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1167>


     Swazis claim their democratic space <http://links.org.au/node/1164>

By Jan Sithole, general secretary of the Swaziland Federation of Trade
Unions
July 16, 2009 -- Ask most people around the world who are not from
Swaziland what they know about the country, the most likely response
will be a blank stare. Those who have heard of Swaziland are mired in
stereotypes about an exotic mountain kingdom.
As a Swazi citizen who was born, brought up and lives in Swaziland,
these conjured images bring weary smiles every time I am confronted with
them, especially when I am abroad on an assignment representing the
trade union movement.
Swaziland, just like the rest of Africa and the global South, is a
country grappling with all the contradictions and challenges thrown up
by history, globalisation and internal power politics.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1164>


     Venezuela: Firmness and participation needed to deepen transition to
     socialism <http://links.org.au/node/1163>

Marea Socialista editorial, issue 20, July 12, 2009. Translated by Sean
Seymour-Jones for Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal
The Honduras coup was aimed at attacking the entire the Bolivarian
Alliance for the People's of America (ALBA) project, and in particular
the Bolivarian Revolution. The crisis of the global capitalist system is
deepening and imperialism has entered a phase where it will try to
resolve it with politico-military initiatives. The dangerous example
that confronts it in Latin America is the Bolivarian Revolution and the
ALBA process.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1163>


     How Obama pardons capitalism for its misdeeds in Africa
     <http://links.org.au/node/1162>

By Emilie Tamadaho Atchaca (Benin), Solange Koné (Ivory Coast), Jean
Victor Lemvo (Congo Brazzaville), Damien Millet (France), Luc Mukendi
and Victor Nzuzi (Congo Kinshasa), Sophie Perchellet (France), Aminata
Barry Touré (Mali), Eric Toussaint (Belgium), Ibrahim Yacouba (Niger)
<http://links.org.au/#_ftn1>. Translated by Maria Gatti

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1162>


     Preview of new documentary, Chasing Chavez
     <http://links.org.au/node/1161>

July 21, 2009 -- This is a taste of a new documentary about Venezuela,
which is now in production. It explores Venezuela's Bolivarian
Revolution through the eyes of Australian Coral Wynter, an activist with
the Australia-Venezuela Solidarity Network, as she seeks a meeting with
Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez. Wynter and Jim McIlroy are authors of
a new book about Venezuela's participatory democracy, Voices from
Venezuela: Behind the Bolivarian Revolution.

Watch at http://links.org.au/node/1161


     Canada: Statement of purpose, Vancouver Socialist Forum
     <http://links.org.au/node/1160>

Vancouver Socialist Forum was founded in 2007 to promote the ideas of
socialism and facilitate the political activity of its members. It
organises educational discussions and regular public forums. The
economic crisis that engulfed the planet in 2008 once again illustrates
the destructive and irrational nature of capitalism. To prevent
worsening social and economic misery for the world's population,
capitalism must be replaced by an entirely new economic and social
order, socialism. The goal of socialism is to create societies that
offer full participation to each member and are environmentally
sustainable. Human needs will be fulfilled through public and democratic
ownership of the means of producing social wealth.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1160>


     Lipstick on a pig: The failure of Obama's health-care reform
     <http://links.org.au/node/1159>

By Billy Wharton
July 19, 2009 -- Consider it a symptom of a larger disease. A fervent
commitment to defend the profit margins of private industry seems to be
a national religion for politicians in the United States. No matter how
deeply the private sector mucks up society, some senator or
representative or, if things get really out of control, president will
appear to rescue the day for the corporations all in the name of justice
for the citizens of the US. Like any religion, this process has highly
crafted rituals. First a confession, then march the sinners around at
one hearing or another, then mete out acceptable penance and then all is
forgiven.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1159>


     Australia: Global warming and the 'Big Dry'-- What prospects for the
     Murray-Darling river system? <http://links.org.au/node/1158>

By Renfrey Clarke
July 20, 2009 -- From desert-fringe villages and drowning atolls, global
warming is predicted before long to set climate refugees on the move.
But arguably, the first climate refugees to reach Australia's major
cities are arriving already. And the places from which they have come
are not exotic -- rural towns like Mildura, Renmark and Griffith in
Australia's south-east.

     * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1158>

* * *
Links seeks to promote the international exchange of information,
experience of struggle, theoretical analysis and views of political
strategy and tactics within the international left. It is a forum for
open and constructive dialogue between active socialists coming from
different political traditions. It seeks to bring together those in the
international left who are opposed to neoliberal economic and social
policies. It aims to promote the renewal of the socialist movement in
the wake of the collapse of the bureaucratic model of "actually existing
socialism" in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

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