1 August 2013 — WSWS
On Wednesday, the day after the conviction of Bradley Manning was handed down by a military judge, the Washington Post published an article under the headline, “Manning’s Conviction Seen as Making Prosecution of WikiLeaks’ Assange Likely.” The Post noted that the prosecutors—that is, the Obama administration—specifically tailored their case against Manning to implicate the founder of WikiLeaks.
2 August 2013 — Socialist Resistance
[And here’s a defence of the ‘Party of Left Unity’. WB]
A debate has begun inside Left Unity – the project to set up a new party of the left in Britain – about what kind of party it should become. Here Tom Walker argues the case for the Left Party Platform
1 August 2013 — Left Unity
[The following is a statement that defines the proposed new party of the left, ‘The Left Unity Party’ by the undersigned at the end of the doc. Though frankly, after reading it, I’m trying to figure out why they bothered, its 10-point plan differs not one iota from the ‘plans’ of other supposedly left parties here in the UK and elsewhere amongst the imperialist states. WB] Continue reading
30 July 2013 — New Left Project
It is easily forgotten that the 1980s were nearly not the 1980s at all, politically speaking. At the decade’s outset, an aggressively organised, ideologically diverse Left insurgency was the ascendent force in a Labour Party hovering around 50% in opinion polls, as the British public recoiled from the initial, monetarist-brutalist phase of Thatcherism.
25 July 2013 — John Pilger
I have known my postman for more than 20 years. Conscientious and good-humoured, he is the embodiment of public service at its best. The other day, I asked him, “Why are you standing in front of each door like a soldier on parade?”
20 July, 2013 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal
The Socialist Workers Party (SWP) is an important “far left” organisation in Britain which, among other things, organises an annual educational conference — Marxism — in London. The SWP is undergoing a crisis which is only one aspect of a much larger phenomenon, taking place on a global scale within the revolutionary left. This involves a recomposition of the revolutionary socialist movement as a political force, in tandem with the struggles of the multi-faceted working class struggling against the effects of the present world crisis of capitalism.
11 July 2013 — The Hampton Institute
Egypt is one of the most important countries in the world, geopolitically speaking. With a history spanning some 7,000 years, it is one of the oldest civilizations in the world, sitting at the point at which Africa meets the Middle East, across the Mediterranean from Europe. Continue reading
10 July 2013 — Greanville Post
Cairo – Egypt is at war. More accurately, Egypt is experiencing yet another battle in its ongoing class war. The battle is so fierce because the primary combatants are the two most powerful social forces in Egypt, both factions of the capitalist class – the military as the state capitalist class and the Ikhwan (the Muslim Brotherhood) representing the competitive capitalist class.
10 July 2013 — WSWS
Former NSA employee Edward Snowden has exposed the infrastructure of a police state whose surveillance powers far exceed those of totalitarian dictatorships such as the German Nazi regime.
8 July 2013 — Strategic Culture Foundation
Photo: Protest in Germany against PRISM. Banner: “Against state surveillance”.
Snowden’s revelations have put a deep freeze on US-EU relations. Diplomats in Europe are searching for (and finding) bugs in their embassies. Influential politicians speak about this unprecedented betrayal of the transatlantic partnership. The popular German magazine SPIEGEL has published its bitter conclusion: «Berlin is a third-class ally». Can this super-scandal doom the trade talks with the US?
A political class transparently and unapologetically at the service of the superrich
Governments abhor transparency, and governments lie. To keep them (comparatively) honest, an engaged and informed citizenry is indispensable. That requires media that are aggressive and probing, and that are not afraid to speak the truth. We have precious little of that in the United States today.
4 July 2013 — The Bullet • Socialist Project • E-Bulletin No. 848
The near equality in strength of the two camps contending for power in Egypt led the army to stage a Bonapartist coup. It is not only the recent episode of unprecedented crowds in the millions coming out on 30 June that has made the army move. This struggle between the Muslim Brotherhood government of now deposed President Mohamed Morsi, on the one hand, and the opposition, represented by the National Salvation Front, and more recently by the Tamerod (Rebel) movement, on the other, has been going on since last November. This is, in fact, the third wave of spectacular demonstrations by the opposition within a cycle of the Egyptian revolution that has been going on since November.
30 June 2013 — RT
The NSA document leaked by whistleblower Edward Snowden and published by Der Spiegel classified Germany as a “third-class” partner, on the same level as China, Iraq and Saudi Arabia, meaning that the US surveillance in Germany was stronger than in any other EU country.
27 June 2013 — Oriental Review
The ongoing Syrian crisis will be certainly viewed by future generations as a classic example of how a completely false reality, as presented by the dominant Western political class and corporate media, has inscrutably resulted in the moral and political reinforcement of the opposing party, which was desperately defending the principles of law and justice under unprecedented pressure from a transnational party of war.
26 June, 2013 — The Wolf Report nonconfidential analysis for the anti-investor
1….of staring blankly into space
Everywhere. And everyone. Smartphones. Everybody’s staring at his or her smartphone. Some are staring at their smartphones, multi-multi-tasking I suppose. Or just showing off, as if one flat screen can’t possibly make him or her available enough to all those out there dying to connect. Multiple smartphones. On the first day of Christmas, the true love offers one Blackberry. On the second day, two Samsung Galaxy 4s. On the third, three Iphones. But nobody’s giving anybody Nokias, that’s for sure. There is no Christmas for Finland.
17 June 2013 — Global Research
In the wake of having its illegal domestic surveillance dragnet exposed, laying bare (yet again) the utter duplicity and criminality of the U.S. ruling class, Washington is once again digging deep to conjure up a pretext for yet another war of aggression in the Middle East.
17 June 2013 — WSWS
In a document released at the end of May, the American banking and investment giant JP Morgan Chase calls for the overturning of the bourgeois democratic constitutions established in a series of European countries after the Second World War and the installation of authoritarian regimes.
11 June 2013 — WSWS
Last weekend, approximately 200 European trade unions, political NGOs (non-governmental organizations), charity groups, and feminist, environmentalist and pseudo-left groupings organized a so-called Alter-Summit in Athens. The meeting endorsed the institutions of the European Union (EU), with which union bureaucracies have worked closely in negotiating and approving austerity policies since the outbreak of the European debt crisis.
9 June, 2013 — Truthdig
Army Pfc. Bradley Manning is escorted out of a courthouse at Fort Meade, Md., on Wednesday after the third day of his court-martial. AP/Patrick Semansky
FORT MEADE, Md.—The military trial of Bradley Manning is a judicial lynching. The government has effectively muzzled the defense team. The Army private first class is not permitted to argue that he had a moral and legal obligation under international law to make public the war crimes he uncovered. The documents that detail the crimes, torture and killing Manning revealed, because they are classified, have been barred from discussion in court, effectively removing the fundamental issue of war crimes from the trial. Continue reading
1 June 2013 — The Bullet • Socialist Project E-Bulletin No. 831
Istanbul has become a battlefield covered by tear gas. The police, no doubt at the behest of the Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and his AKP government, have been attacking protestors in the centre of the city, near Taksim Square, for five consecutive days. This would have been no news at all: Turkish police are famous for their brutality in dealing with demonstrations unwelcome to the government. Only a month ago, on May Day, they had dispersed a gathering of thousands of workers and unionists using tear gas unsparingly. So nothing new on the police front. This time is different for another reason.
The New Dark Age 