14 March 2014 – Lawrence and Wishart
States of imagination (PDF)
Janet Newman and John Clarke
Many people associate the state with bureaucracy or even repression, and have no time for current politicians. But the state also looks after us – in hospitals, schools, social services – and could enable us to better control unscrupulous business and banks. Can we imagine a more responsive state?
31 October 2013 — Our Kingdom
Next week will see a public meeting in London discussing what we can do about the rise of mass government surveillance. Anthony Barnett outlines why this is a crucial issue, and why you should be there. Continue reading
7 October 2013 — International Socialism
There has been a significant revival of interest among the radical left in “big picture” questions of socialist strategy that, as Mark L. Thomas has pointed out, represents a return to “important debates of the left largely absent over the last three decades”.1
22 October 2013 — WSWS
The campaign of vilification and intimidation against the Guardian newspaper for publishing the disclosures of former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden is without precedent in a supposedly democratic country.
18 October 2013 — 21st Century Wire
17 October 2013 — Dissident Voice
October 15, 2013 — Links international Journal of Socialist Renewal
Young Marx
As Karl Korsh noted in Marxism and Philosophy, the philosophical foundation of Marx’s works has often been neglected. The Second International had, in Korsch’s view, pushed aside philosophy as an ideology, preferring “science”. This, he charged, tended to reduce Marxism to a positivistic sociology, and in so doing, it internalised and replicated the theoretical logic of capitalism. [1] In place of this, Korsch called for a revitalisation of Marxism that would view philosophy not simply as false consciousness but as a necessary part of the social totality.[2]
14 October 2013 — Media Lens
10 October 2013 — Our NHS
[I’m not sure if responding to this BBC survey is worth the effort or not, but who knows? In any case, I’ve just completed it and zoomed it off. Perhaps, just perhaps, if enough of us respond, something might change, though the role of the BBC in propagandizing for the state is so crucial in preserving the status quo, the odds are against it. But it does reflect the fact that people are finally wising up to the role of BBC and the powers that be know this. WB]
Image: Marcus Chown
The BBC is asking for your views on its news and current affairs coverage. This is a good chance to feedback any comments you may have on its coverage of the NHS.
Details of the review are here.
It’s always best to cite examples of specific reports, and why you have concerns, rather than just say NHS coverage in general is biased.
23 September 2013 — http://www.statewatch.org/ • e-mail: office@statewatch.org
New Statewatch Journal: Informants, spies and subversion
http://www.statewatch.org/contents/swjournal23n2.html
13 September 2013 — The Bullet • Socialist Project E-Bulletin No. 877
Why did ‘real socialism’ and, in particular the Soviet Union, fall? Let me note a few explanations that have been offered. With respect to the Soviet Union, one very interesting explanation that has been suggested is that it’s all the fault of Mikhail Gorbachev. And not simply the errors of Gorbachev but the treachery. Those who offer this explanation rely in particular upon a document which is sometimes described as his confession. This document begins as follows:
27 August 2013 — WSWS
The police justification for the recent fatal shooting with a Taser gun of a young man in Manchester, England has begun to unravel.
20 August 2013 — RT
The effort to seize or destroy the Snowden-related documents held at the Guardian’s London office was handled by senior Whitehall officials, who answered directly to Number 10 Downing Street, Rusbridger said during an interview with BBC News on Tuesday.
16 August 2013 — The Bullet • Socialist Project E-Bulletin No. 865
For some two decades, the anti-globalization movement and its successors have assumed that society contains within itself – and automatically throws up – political oppositions and organizational forms independent of capital and of the state. There is simply the need to encourage the cumulative growth of society’s own potentialities for forming alternatives apart from the state and apart from the terrain of politics. Continue reading
16 August 2013 — Our Kingdom – Occupied Times
15 August 2013 — The Bullet • Socialist Project • E-Bulletin No. 864
For some two decades, the anti-globalization movement and its successors have assumed that society contains within itself – and automatically throws up – political oppositions and organizational forms independent of capital and of the state. There is simply the need to encourage the cumulative growth of society’s own potentialities for forming alternatives apart from the state and apart from the terrain of politics. Politics is not about the contesting directly, never mind conquering, political power. Instead, politics is viewed as the evolutionary and ‘progressive emptying out of the power of capital and of the state.’ Social coalitions, social forums, networks, and localist alternatives – with an associated range of one-off tactical actions – became the outer limit of organizational agendas.
10 August 2013 — Strategic Culture Foundation
At the end of July, eurozone deputy finance ministers approved another transfer of money to Greece to the tune of EUR 6.8 billion (it had previously been thought that Athens would be allocated EUR 8.1 billion). Several days earlier, meanwhile, the Greek parliament approved the latest in a series of legislative acts, the adoption of which had been a condition of receiving money from international creditors – the International Monetary Fund, the European Commission and the European Central Bank. Continue reading
9 August 2013 — Global Research
If Albion is perfidious in foreign lands is it not likely its cunning and its lying will be strong suits on the home front? The trappings of Crown, ancient ceremony, and red empire stamp authority and apparent integrity on the British state. These, and much else, are the coinage of a supine and incestuous media and especially of the BBC, the state broadcaster and supreme propagandist. ‘Nation shall speak peace unto nation’ is its most ironic motto. The whole works in terrible concert.
31 July 2013 — The Electronic Intifada
Critics of a new Israeli army recruitment campaign say it’s designed to fragment the Palestinian community and make it more difficult to obtain their rights.
19 July 2013 — Global Research
A bearded man of avuncular appearance had started early in replying to e-mails on the 17th July 2003. He was in the office of his pretty cottage, with the scent of roses telling of an English summer. The little village of Southmoor was stirring. He was to send over 80 via one of five hard drives and mostly in reply. Some would be encrypted because he was writing to friends and colleagues who like him shared secrets in the field of “WMDs”. And some would be human and ordinary as from a father of three daughters. He had delighted in seeing a new born foal and arranged to take his daughter Rachel down the village that Thursday evening to see young life together.
The New Dark Age 