Workers' Liberty

“The attempt of the bourgeoisie during its internecine conflicts to oblige all humanity to divide up into only two camps is motivated by a desire to prohibit the proletariat from having its own independent ideas.

Day after day the bloody hands of terrorist Islamic gangs are destroying new aspects of the life of Iraqi society.

A grumpy and harassed looking Ken Bodfish (OBE), Brighton and Hove Labour council leader, rushed into a council meeting on 25 November. He looked visibly shaken by the 350 teaching assistants and their supporters who had turned up to protest on the second day of their strike.

On 23 November, at a conference in the Egyptian town of Sharm al-Shaykh, the USA succeeded in getting the assent of Iraq’s neighbour states, including Iran and Syria, and of the G8 big powers, including France and Russia, for its plans in Iraq.

In blaze of corporate charity, sportswear giant Nike held a 10 kilometre “fun” run, at night, through Bermondsey in south London. 30,000 runners, each paying £25, were cheered on by hired supporters shouting “go Nike Nocturnals” and other gibberish. As they approached the finish line a recorded loop shouted applause and told them, “You’re doing great”, and, “Just Do It” . But that was underneath a rather attractive No Sweat Banner. On the night No Sweat and the Space Hoppers were out in force.

Co-op Funeralcare workers are voting on a new offer including a cut in the working week, improved London weighting and a pay rise of nearly 5%. The Co-op had repeatedly said they would not improve an earlier 3.5% offer that hundreds of workers had previously rejected.

Solidarity has much to condemn the SWP for — most of all the way it has funnelled thousands of people who want to be socialists into being bag-carriers for George Galloway, for the Muslim Association of Britain (British offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood), and for the Islamist militias in Iraq.

The outcry against David Blunkett fomented by his ex-lover Kimberly Quinn, publisher of the right wing weekly the Spectator? It couldn’t happen to a nicer guy!

Christmas and unity

Christmas pressures tended to united pit communities. Socialist Organiser of 12 December reported from Kiveton Park:

“As television commercials paraded computers and spaceships before children’s eyes, Jenny Dennis had to tell her seven year old son Matthew that Santa Claus was a mere fantasy.

Sixteen Liverpool striking social workers, and their supporters from London and Surrey, picketed the General Social Care Council’s conference in London on 27 November.

More than 8,000 Brazilian landless activists surrounded the central bank on Thursday 25 November and threatened a big fight over land next year unless they get more public money to speed up land reform.

The British state has effectively admitted that the US/UK occupation's programme of forced privatisation in Iraq has been unlawful.

In April 2004 Ewa Jasiewicz and Pennie Quinton were arrested and charged with “aggravated trespass” for entering and disrupting the Iraq Procurement conference in London. It was a business conference where representatives of the occupation authority came to discuss deals and contracts with bosses from big multinational corporations.

A lot of people have been disturbed and sickened by the suffering from famine in Africa. Some rock stars have felt the same way.

The have got together — under the name of Band Aid — to put out a record, “Feed the World”.

In 1883 the German socialist August Bebel published Woman under Socialism. The book helped spread a socialist message to many thousands of men and women. It was the most-read book in the German socialist movement’s large network of workers’ libraries. By 1895, 25 editions had been printed in Germany alone.

The lockout of hotel workers in the US city of San Francisco has come to an end, after unions and management announced a 60-day “cooling off” period.

At the time of writing, the wave of protests which swept through Ukraine’s cities after the presidential elections on 20 November may be beginning to have an affect.

Sacha Ismail reviews The Manchurian candidate

In the famous 1960s film of the same name, American soldiers in the Korean war are brainwashed by Chinese Stalinists to carry out assassinations as part of a power struggle with witch-hunting US McCarthyites. A sophisticated satire on the totalitarian symbiosis between the two Cold War camps? Well, as I haven’t actually seen it, I can’t say.

Fourteen people, including two children, were killed in the Philippines on November 16 when the army dispersed a strike at the Hacienda Luisita Sugar Mill.

Thirteen million people watched the Band Aid video on TV on 18 November. Half a million are expected to buy the CD of the song in the first week after its release on 29 November.

The Korean Federation of Trade Unions organised a six-hour general strike on November 26 as part of its campaign against the government’s proposed anti-union laws.

During the last week of October, a delegation from the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) arrived in Zimbabwe for a brief “fact-finding mission”.

A girls’ school in the East End of London recently decided to ban the wearing of the jilbab by students. The jilbab is the long coat or dress, which covers the body from the neck to the feet and is worn over the school uniform. As a result of the ban, three students stayed away from school and those wearers of it that continued to attend set up a petition demanding the right to do so.

The Brighton and Hove teaching assistants’ strike is caused by the Remodelling Agreement, signed by all the unions involved in education except the National Union of Teachers.

Adam Keller of Gush Shalom and The Other Israel spoke to Solidarity about the political situation after the death of Yasser Arafat.

Sex and the Socialists

On 11 November Tommy Sheridan resigned from his post as convenor of the Scottish Socialist Party. Days later the Scottish News of the World published an expose of Sheridan’s affair with a party activist.

Trade unionists from across the public sector have launched a campaign for united action to defend pension provision.

Paul Hampton reviews Gary Buckman, Globalization: tame it or scrap it?, Zed Books, £9.99

This book brings together a huge amount of information on world trade and capital flows, in an accessible form.

Alan Johnson complains that “one AWL joins protests against multinationals ‘touting for business’ in Iraq... protests that... demand that capitalists stay out... of Iraq”. To that he counterposes the alleged view of “the other AWL” that the coalition project is “relatively progressive” and foreign capital should be welcomed as bringing “industry and jobs”.

The Carillion corporation put £4.1 million into the new Darent Valley hospital, in Dartford, Kent, under New Labour’s Private Finance Initiative (PFI. Now it has sold its stake, and walks away having quadrupled its £4.1 investment within six years.

Ten and a half years after the IRA ceasefire, six and a half years after the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, two years after the latest collapse of the power-sharing government in Belfast, the IRA may be about to disarm completely and disband.