In-depth analysis

Brazilians

Brazil in the pandemic

Brazil is one of the epicentres of the pandemic, surpassing 1.4 million cases and 60 thousand deaths. The pandemic has not plateaued in Brazil, yet the worst affected areas, in terms of numbers of cases, Rio and São Paulo, have started reopening commerce, bars and restaurants.

The Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, maintains his position against social distancing measures (which are left to be done by local governments on a much smaller budget), and has recently vetoed policy passed in congress making the use of face-coverings compulsory in shops, schools and churches.

Black hands on prison bars

The New Jim Crow

Police violence in the USA is only a shore of a whole continent of racial oppression and marginalisation, so Michelle Alexander argues in her 2010 book, now a “classic”, The New Jim Crow.

Alexander is a civil rights lawyer by trade. Chunks of the book are lawyerly, dissecting a string of Supreme Court rulings. She says herself that she wouldn’t have got to a “fancy law school” without affirmative action rules.

Ideas for Freedom

Workers' Liberty: who we are

Who are we? What are Workers' Liberty and Solidarity? We are a political strand in the flux of the broadly-Corbynite left, a flux which may be reshaping the left for a long period to come.

We are the socialist, class-struggle, consistently-democratic, internationalist strand in the left. That is why we meet such hostility from the NGO-politics, Stalinistic or semi-Stalinist, bureaucratic, nationalistic, and "kitsch anti-imperialist" bloc. That small but vocal bloc represents the deadweight inflicted on the left in the Blair-Brown-Cameron decades, but with feet.

Asleep at work

A shorter working week with no pay cut!

Janet Burstall argues the case from an Australian perspective. The same basic ideas are applicable in Britain and elsewhere.

The most optimistic assessment by the Reserve Bank is that it will take a “few years” to reverse “much” (i.e. not all) of the increase in unemployment from the Covid-19 lockdown. The wages vs jobs trade-off debate is back with a vengeance.

Bonus Army under attack

US army on streets against protesters: 1932 version

The broadcast media in the United States are bound by no rules of impartiality and in many respects reflect the views of one or the other of the two dominant capitalist parties.

The notorious Fox News promotes the right-wing Trump agenda, spiced up with far-right conspiracy theories. On the other side, CNN and MSNBC do actual serious reporting, but are not immune from ideological myths.

Don't look back, you're not going that way

Going on the offensive

The socialist left in Britain, including us, were so invested in the Corbyn project and are still so disoriented from the December 2019 election defeat that we fail to notice what's before our faces. That, for the first time since the Poll Tax revolt, our class is on the offensive.

RMT banner honour the Taff Vale strikers

The birth of the Labour Party and the right to strike

In Solidarity 539 (18 March), I told the story of Labour’s rise and drew lessons for rebuilding independent working-class politics – as opposed to Lib-Lab-type “progressive” politics – today.

One aspect I’d like to explore further: how in its first years Labour grew out of, built and led a successful fight to overturn legal anti-strike restrictions and assert workers’ right to strike. That also has lessons for today.

Joe Biden and Michael Bloomberg

Reply to 66 Old New Leftists who urge support for Biden

A large group of people who had been prominent in Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) [in the 1960s have] written an open letter about the importance of supporting Joe Biden [for US president]... They tell us “this is an all hands on deck moment,” and that supporting Joe Biden in order to defeat Donald Trump “is our high moral and political responsibility”.

The letter of the sixty-six appeals to the lessons of history, which I think is always a good idea. What they do with history, however, strikes me as selective and superficial.

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