3 September 2013 — Our Kingdom
While doing virtually nothing to fix the real problems of money in politics, the government is trying to introduce a new law that will shut down vast swathes of political commentary and scrutiny for a whole year before general elections.
3 September 2013 — WSWS
Recent disclosures have again confirmed London Underground management is planning to close all its 268 ticket offices over the next two years. Around 2,000 jobs are expected to be lost during that period, with job losses across the rail and underground network rising to 6,000 by 2020. The job losses are part of Transport for London (TfL) and London Conservative mayor Boris Johnson’s £7.6 billion cuts programme to the London transport budget.
16 August 2013 — Terry Bell
Shortly after the column below was written and blogged, the SA Communist Party issued its statement on Marikana that reveals the deep and dangerous sectarianism of this organisation. Here, I feel, is exposed one of the roots of the problem. I include here the final paragraph of that statement as an introduction to a repeat of the Inside Labour column that appeared here yesterday: Continue reading
18 August 2013 — The Real News Network
Patrick Bond: South Africa trade unions become magnets for capital as an ideological confict masked as a sex scandal threatens to fracture union behind the one-year-old massacre (inc. transcript)
3 August, 2013 — Left Unity
[See Socialist Platform Statement of Aims and Principles and The Left Party Platform, the two other ‘platforms’ proposed by ‘factions’ within Left Unity.
Introducing – the Class Struggle Platform
We have drafted a third ‘platform’ to extend the debate within Left Unity. Having read the two platforms currently circulating – the Left Party Platform and the Socialist Platform – we were struck by an obvious similarity between them. Neither address the immediate issues confronting the working class in Britain today, which are not run of the mill concerns, but critical to all our futures.
8 August 2013 — WSWS
The biggest ever contract for the sell-off of public health services in England, worth between £700 million to £1.1 billion, is being offered to private health care providers by the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) as part of its “Older People’s Programme”. From July 2014, six National Health Service (NHS) contracts that include four hospital trusts, one mental health trust and one community service trust will be replaced.
7 August 2013 — Links – International journal of socialist renewal
August 6, 2013 — For a good part of his 33 years in power, Robert Mugabe has presided over a ruthless dictatorship. From the thousands killed in the 1980s Gukurahundi massacres and misery for millions under ESAP [structural adjustment plan], Operation Murambatsvina and hyper-inflation of 2008.
1 July, 2013 — Dissident Voice
Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as the exploited proletariat, but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires. — John Steinbeck
6 June 2013 — WSWS
The “People’s Assembly Against Austerity”, held in London on June 22, was a desperate attempt to uphold the threadbare authority of the trade unions and to suppress any movement independent of them and the Labour Party. Continue reading
21 June 2013 — Strategic Culture Foundation
The events on Istanbul’s Taksim Square are presented in the world media as the consequences of an «ecologically incorrect» decision by the government to clear a landscaped area in a park located on the square. This is far from the truth and raises questions about the real interests of the West in the spreading conflict.
20 June 2013 — WSWS
The UK is experiencing the deepest and most protracted economic downturn in a century. The decline in wages is even greater than that resulting from the Great Depression of the 1930s.
20 June 2013 — WSWS
The dispute involving around 400 clerical staff and administrative workers at the Mid Yorkshire Hospital Trust has been wound up by the Unison and Unite unions.
16 June 2013 — Morning Star
Ken Loach is clear about the importance of NHS SOS. “Across society, there is a realisation that the National Health Service is one of the greatest social achievements and that to keep it is an enormous political challenge. This book is a weapon in that struggle.”
30 May 2013 — James Petras
Many billions of Euros are being extracted from Europe’s vassal-debtor nations – Spain, Greece, Portugal and Ireland –and transferred to the creditor banks, financial speculators and swindlers located in the City of London, Wall Street, Geneva and Frankfort. Continue reading
18 December 1878 — Marxists Internet Archive
This interview with Karl Marx first appeared on January 5, 1879, in the Chicago Tribune–one of the most conservative newspapers of the time, which regularly attacked socialism and trade unions.
10 May 2013 — Venezuela Analysis
Venezuela’s new Labour Law for Workers (Lottt) came into effect this week, guaranteeing shorter working hours, longer maternity leave and pensions for all Venezuelans.
3 May 2013 — The Bullet • Socialist Project E-Bulletin No. 815
We, the representatives of progressive political parties from the Mediterranean region, gathered in Tunis from March 23 to 24, 2013, at the call of the Popular Front, and adopted the following resolution.
12 April 2013 — Amandla!
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) is in the midst of the biggest crisis in its 27-year history. This crisis has arisen from a South African Communist Party (SACP)-driven attempt to oust democratically elected COSATU general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi, under the guise of corruption charges. The conflict’s roots are in longstanding political contradictions and ideological tensions between COSATU and its Alliance partners – the ruling African National Congress and the SACP. At stake is not only the leadership of COSATU, but its political and moral direction.
11 April 2013 — grtv
The recent bail-in in Cyprus has given the world a glimpse at the future of the banking landscape. Now, as Canada gets set to hardwire the bail-in process into law, analysts like Michel Chossudovsky are warning how the big banks can use this template to further consolidate their monopoly of economic control. This is the GRTV Backgrounder on Global Research TV.
8 April, 2013 — Michael Hudson
Failed Privatizations – the Thatcher Legacy
By Michael Hudson, a research professor of Economics at University of Missouri, Kansas City, and a research associate at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College. His latest book is “The Bubble and Beyond”.
This is from my book on privatization, written some 15 years ago, never published.
The New Dark Age 