Developing a common transformational project and building counter-power remains the central task of the left. Especially in areas of social infrastructure, such as housing and healthcare, profit maximization has a particularly devastating effect. The strategy of socialization, i.e. the transfer of private property into democratic structures, can provide orientation here.
Global Shale Gas and the Anti-Fracking Movement (tags)
Water Contamination. The evidence strongly suggests that fracking poses serious dangers to workers, communities, and the natural environment with particularly severe impacts in terms of water contamination and access. Fracking just one well can use between 2 million to 5.6 million gallons of freshwater
Netanyahu Vows Zero Tolerance (tags)
Israel
Ukraine
Stoking Confrontation with Russia (tags)
Ukraine
Navigating Egypt’s Revolutionary Crisis (tags)
As chaos again envelopes Egypt, the revolution is evolving in new directions, along contradictory and confusing channels. It’s tempting to immediately support the “opposition” to the Muslim Brotherhood’s apparent “power grab,” but the situation in Egypt is more complex. The recent events in Egypt are not simply signs of a healthy revolution, they include immediate dangers.
Israel
The Left, Labor and Occupy (tags)
Barely half a year after it burst on the scene, the Occupy Wall Street movement is splintering left and right. This was inevitable in a movement that was united only in what it opposed and could never put forward a positive program, whether of reformist "demands" on the capitalist state or of revolutionary action against it. Liberals, who latched onto Occupy hoping it could pressure the Democratic Party in a more populist direction, want to expel "black bloc" anarchists. Reformist social democrats rail against "ultraleftists" in Occupy and cozy up to the labor tops. On the other side, many (but not all) anarchists oppose unions. Some are simply arrogant petty-bourgeois labor haters. Others are grappling with real problems, but with skewed analysis and dead wrong conclusions. Discussion of recent workers' struggles, from Wisconsin to West Coast longshore, underlines that the key question is leadership, but not just replacing one set of bureaucrats with another. Unions have always faced vicious anti-labor laws, but we have the power to defeat them. It is necessary to drive out the pro-capitalist bureaucracy, the labor lieutenants of capital, in order to turn the unions into instruments of revolutionary class struggle.
Bahrain: A Case Study in Despotism (tags)
police state
Longshore Workers, Truckers: Shut the Ports, Coast to Coast! (tags)
Following the nationally-coordinated police evictions last month of Occupy Wall Street and encampments across the country, on December 12 the Occupiers struck back. Ports up and down the West Coast were blockaded, from Seattle to San Diego. Despite a barrage of hostile propaganda in the media, opposition from union bureaucrats and heavy police repression in some places, overall the blockade was successful -- this time. The blockade was called in solidarity with longshore workers fighting a union-busting assault in Longview, Washington and port truckers seeking union recognition in the ports of Los Angeles/Long Beach. This support should have been greeted. But now the class war on the West Coast docks is coming to a head, and it can't be waged from the outside. Bay Area labor has called for a caravan to Longview. The goal should be a real occupation of the terminal by the workers to prevent the loading of the scab cargo. Longshore militants have called on the longshore unions to shut down every port on the West Coast, and the East and Gulf Coasts, to smash EGT's union-busting. Can it be done? Yes, but only though sharp struggle against the pro-capitalist labor bureaucracy.
Book Review: "The Great Crash or the Century Crisis" by Elmar Altvater (tags)
Capitalism is at an end and the whole world is drawn into the mess. Preventing this is an ethical imperative and a political duty. The multiple crisis has dragged on for years. The political class allows this to happen. Political answers to the debacle can only be found with clarity on causes.
Police State Terror in Bahrain (tags)
police state
Successful socialism conference held in the Philippines (tags)
A successful ‘socialism conference’ was held in Manila from November 27 to 28. The conference was organized by the socialist Partido Lakas ng Masa or Party of the Laboring Masses (PLM) and the socialist-feminist regional network Transform Asia. The conference was attended by 100 delegates, leaders of the PLM from Metro Manila, and other leading socialists of the Philippine left, as well as 13 international guests.
Labor for Palestine: Open Letter to AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka: Boycott Apartheid Is (tags)
In the 1980s, as president of the United Mine Workers, you rightly argued that, "economic pressure and political isolation of the South African government can hasten the day when justice and freedom reign in that troubled land." Two decades later, the cause of "justice and freedom" for Palestinians requires no less of you as president of the AFL-CIO.
Mass Protests Rock Iran: No to All Wings of the Mullah Regime! (tags)
For more than a week, Iran has been convulsed by mass demonstrations denouncing election fraud. Hundreds of thousands have repeatedly taken to the streets to denounce the government, which is now threatening, and beginning to carry out, a bloody crackdown. This time around, imperialist intervention is veiled: the White House feigns neutrality, the Western media go all out for the opposition, while in the background various agencies provide vital technical aid. In reality, all candidates in the presidential vote swear allegiance to the Islamic Republic, and the supposed moderate reformers are no less butchers and enemies of poor and working people than the conservative "populist" government. The situation cries out for revolutionary leadership independent of all factions of the theocracy, to wage a struggle for workers revolution against imperialism and clerical reaction.
An Umbrella for Workers (tags)
The economic crisis is a structural crisis where productivity has soured and wages have stagnated. The fraud in public regional banks must end. Unemployment benefits must increase. Michael Schlecht is a union spokesperson for the German Left party (Die Linke).
Venezuela: Trade unionism between the servile bureaucracy and the hired killers (tags)
* In the difficult times being experienced by the Venezuelan labour movement, perhaps the most dramatic issue have been the criminal acts that kills tens of trade unionists to the passivity of the pseudo-revolutionary government and the silence of his admirers from outside the country. It speaks about it this text of El Libertario # 55, January-February 2009.
Venezuela: Trade unionism between the servile bureaucracy and the hired killers (tags)
* In the difficult times being experienced by the Venezuelan labour movement, perhaps the most dramatic issue have been the criminal acts that kills tens of trade unionists to the passivity of the pseudo-revolutionary government and the silence of his admirers from outside the country. It speaks about it this text of El Libertario # 55, January-February 2009.
Underground workers movement vs. DCWD, Franklin Baker (tags)
Long Live the Struggle of the Workers of Guinea! (tags)
Guinea-Conakry is a small West African country of 10 million inhabitants, one of the poorest countries on the planet, in spite of the richness of its mining industry: diamonds, gold, iron, uranium and especially bauxite of which it is the 2nd largest producer in the world. Although the majority of the population of Guinea lives in misery, local and foreign bourgeois and the multinationals grow rich, protected by the regime of General Lansana Conté (who seized power after a coup in 1984) against rising dissatisfaction.
Long live the struggle of the proletarians and Masses of Guinea! (tags)
Guinea-Conakry is a small West African country of 10 million inhabitants, one of the poorest countries on the planet, in spite of the richness of its mining industry: diamonds, gold, iron, uranium and especially bauxite of which it is the 2nd largest producer in the world. Although the majority of the population of Guinea lives in misery, local and foreign bourgeois and the multinationals grow rich, protected by the regime of General Lansana Conté (who seized power after a coup in 1984) against rising dissatisfaction.
Fear of the Working Class At Home And Internationally Stirs Some Debate Among the Bankers (tags)
There is growing concern among sections of the capitalist class that the rising opposition to their global offensive and the market will get out of control.
Ways to support palestine (tags)
26 ways to show solidarity
Failed Solidarity: The ICFTU, AFL-CIO, ILO, and ORIT in Haiti (tags)
The most prominent international labor organizations active in Haiti, the ICFTU, AFL-CIO, ILO, and ORIT, working to support and strengthen labor unions that agitated for the ousting of Haiti’s democratically elected government, have simultaneously refused to condemn the massive layoffs and persecution of public sector workers and trade unionists committed by its illegally-imposed successor.
French government withdraws “First Job Contract,” enlists unions in assault on job securit (tags)
President Jacques Chirac and Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin announced yesterday that new legislation will be drawn up to replace the “First Job Contract” (CPE), which sparked a massive wave of protests and strikes in recent weeks. Leaders of the trade unions, some student unions and “left” political parties immediately declared the shift marked a decisive victory for the anti-CPE movement and signalled their intention to halt further mass mobilisations against the government.
S. KOREA. Migrant Workers in Struggle (tags)
Migrant workers in S. Korea’s capital Seoul are occupying the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC, actually a part of the S. Korean government). Here a report from the situation yesterday and today, local Korean time.
The Enough-for-All Campaign (tags)
The neoliberal policy is international and supposedly without alternative. However policy is man-made and therefore can be changed.. Every person has a right to share in the social wealth.
Iraqi Labor Movement Fights for Democracy (tags)
As Iraq heads for its January 30 national elections, a free, democratic Iraq is the main goal of its organized working class sector.
"Rainer Roth in The House of Cards puts the mechanisms of the capitalist economy on trial.. To counter the long-term descent of profit rates, the tax burden for businesses, a constant 21% from 1960 to 1980, has spiraled down to only 8% today.."
Shadow Government Code Names (tags)
Shadow government code names used by CIA, NSA, black ops crowd cut outs, fronts, narco-military spooks, proprietaries, mob connected companies....
S. Korea, New Attacks Against Migrant Activists (tags)
Now since 215 days we're fighting, the "ruling" class started again to attack us.
Building Bridges Radio - Unemployment and Contract Workers in Iraq, Israel and Palestine (tags)
BUILDING BRIDGES; YOUR COMMUNITY AND LABOR REPORT PRESENTS THIS 28 MINUTES RADIO PROGRAM. TO LISTEN CLICK ON LA INDYMEDIA AUDIO LINK
Iraqi Trade Union Movement Growing (tags)
This was copied from an email from Australia. Iraqi trade unionists are looking for support from the west. The GFTU is a large bottom-up union competing with a Baathist union, and a top-down old-guard union.
The Permanent Revolution: Battle cry of the 21st Century (tags)
On the trotskyist review Marxism Alive 2 - October 2000
U.S. military attacks Iraqi trade unions (tags)
A U.S. occupation force involving 10 armored vehicles and dozens of soldiers attacked the headquarters of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions in Baghdad, Dec. 6.
[gangbox] SCABS OF NEW YORK (tags)
SCABS OF NEW YORK...rat contractors, company unions and the decline of union labor in the Manhattan residential construction sector
Report on Condition of the Working Class in Iraq (tags)
Dodgy unions, ex-Baathist fascist bosses, spies monitoring the new ministries in Iraq and machine gun armed picket lines.
Chile-First General Strike in 13 Years (tags)
Chile
Opposition coalition takes shape in Colombia (tags)
A new opposition coalition challenges the hard-line regime of President Alvaro Uribe for its devastating economic policies and systematic violations of freedoms. A general strike has been called for August 12th.
Liberia, Junk Bonds, and Rubber (tags)
FROM FIRESTONE TO JUNK BONDS: CAPITALIST PLUNDER LURKS BEHIND LIBERIA'S CHAOS
Building Bridges Radio-Venezuelan Unions In Reshuffle (tags)
WBAI's Building Bridges: Your Community & Labor Report presents this 27 min radio program-To Listen click on indymedia link
International Campaign to support Worker Communist Party of Iraq (tags)
International Campaign to support Worker Communist Party of Iraq
British Unions shift to the Left (tags)
Labor on the March to the Left
U.S. Government of the rich, by the rich, and for the rich (tags)
How has the secretive U.S.-based IMF/World Bank economically enslaved poor countries?
The 911 and why Bill Clinton tells americans to Support Bush (tags)
TO STOP THE WARS, PROCLAIMING THE TRUTH EVERYWHERE IS EXTREME U R G E N C Y !
FTAA and Government Repression in Ecuador: an eyewitness account (tags)
Globalization is supposed to make communication easier. But when the leaders of Ecuador`s social movements tried to deliver a letter critiquing neoliberal globalization to Summit of the Presidents of S. America, they were arrested, roughed up, and their giant letter was destroyed. This highlights the need for international support for the massive protest planned at the 7th summit of the Free Trade Area of the Americas in Ecuador in October.
Enough is Never Enough When It Comes to Profits (tags)
Next up slavery...