Solidarity 3/123: download as pdf
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Solidarity 3/123 says "End the Rule of Profit" to counter global warming. Back page: Cut working hours, support Karen Reissman. Download pdf (see "attachment" below).
Solidarity 3/123, 6 December 2007
The future is what it used to be
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Review of Imaginary futures — from thinking machines to the global village by Richard Barbrook, Pluto Press, 2007.
This book is a history of the future, the history of an ideology, which, over the last 60 years, has sought to colonise our conceptions of the way the world is going.
SWP (IS) and Northern Ireland in 1968-9: Advocating civil war — until it starts! (Part 6, section 1)
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This article reviews the way that the biggest activist-left group of the last 35 years or so in Britain — the SWP, then called IS — dealt with the biggest internal crisis the British state has seen since the early 1920s, the breakdown of Northern Ireland into civil war in 1969. It continues a series about the British left and the decisive early stages of the nearly 40 years of “Troubles” in Northern Ireland.
[This is an edited and augmented version of the text in Solidarity. It includes excerpts from the minutes of the leading committees of the International Socialist organisation, which are not in the version printed in Solidarity.]
- Section 2 of this instalment of the series
- Part 1: Why Northern Ireland Broke Down
- Part 2: The Irish Workers' Group, I S and the "Trotskyist Tendency"
- Part 3: Why Northern Ireland Split on Communal, Not Class, Lines
- Part 4: When militant sloganeering meant promoting communal war
- Part 5: When socialists looked to "Catholic Power"
Calling off Action: Where is the SWP Going?
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A key factor in trashing the possibility of a united public-sector fightback this year against Gordon Brown’s 2% limit has been the decision by the civil service union PCS, although it already had a live ballot mandate for action, to withdraw into prolonged “consultations” of its membership while the POA and CWU strikes and the Unison health and local government ballots came and went. Having “consulted” and announced that PCS members supported further national strike action, the PCS leadership then... decided to call off any further national action, at least for the time being.
Support the workers’ movement in Iran!
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Statement by the International Alliance in Support of Workers in Iran
The recent extended wave of oppression against the well-known activists of workers' organisations in Iran and other social movements is not a new incident but a routine practice of the Islamic Republic of Iran. This wave of repression nevertheless exhibits particular characteristics, including the radicalisation and development of class-based labour protests, advancing social movements within the specific socio-economic context and pressures from both within the country and internationally.
NUS: Will the SWP Leaders Scupper Left Unity?
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Open Letter to an SWP Student
Dear Comrade,
If different sections of the left can work together to defend NUS democracy, why can't we work together to present a united challenge to those who are attacking democracy in the elections at the next NUS conference? That was a question that members of Workers’ Liberty were among the many people asking SWP and Respect students at the NUS Extraordinary Conference on 4 December. The response was universally positive — with a crucial exception.
Edinburgh job cuts
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On 29 November Edinburgh City Council’s SNP/Lib-Dem coalition administration announced plans to axe a thousand jobs. The announcement was e-mailed to staff even before the City Council unions had been informed.
London Underground Cleaners win
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Tube cleaners working for contractors to Metronet are to receive substantial pay rises when Transport for London takes over the failed privateer’s contracts, marking a huge victory for the RMT on London Underground.
Putin’s party consolidates power
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“United Russia” (UR) — the political party which backs Russia’s President, Vladimir Putin — won an easy victory in the elections held on 1 December for the Duma (the lower chamber of the Russian parliament). At the time of writing, early results indicate that UR won 63% of votes cast.
“Zionists” scapegoated for Sarkozy’s crimes
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The left-wing website Indymedia seems to have allowed itself to be manipulated by the anti-semitic right again. A recent report on the site, citing the Iranian-government-sponsored Press TV (for which Yvonne Ridley works) as source, claims that French president Nicolas Sarkozy is a former agent of the Israeli secret police Mossad.