Workers' Liberty

“The markets rule the world. Maybe that’s why your conspiracy theorists make up all those crazy things. Because the truth is so much more frightening...”

“A smack is parents trying to hit you, [but] instead of calling [it] a hit they call it a smack.” — A seven year old (from It Hurts You Inside, Children’s Rights Alliance)

Last month Jacqui Smith announced at the Labour Party Conference that from October the government will be taking steps to clamp down on the sex industry in the UK.

Anyone who has ever taken part in direct action will have some first-hand experience of why the police force exists. Liberals and right-wingers may argue that battering Climate Camp activists or striking miners over the head with truncheons are unfortunate anomalies; stopping old people from being mugged is the real essence of the role of the police.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT: On 20 August and 24 September Scottish local government workers staged two successful 24-hour strikes demanding a 5% pay-rise or £1,000, whichever is the greater. The employers’ improved offer was 2.5% rise this year.

On 14 October the Government abolished SATS exams for 14 year olds. The decision seems to have been prompted by the fact that the private contractor (of course) which ran the SATS this year fouled it up and had to be sacked, and the Government had trouble finding a replacement in time for 2009.

Civil servants (PCS) and teachers (NUT) are set to strike in November against the Government’s two-and-a-bit per cent limit on pay rises — but on different days.

A coalition of student activists, in a campaign initiated by Education Not for Sale, is planning to organise a demonstration at the start of 2009 against all fees and for a living grant.

Refugee rights and anti racist campaigners took to the streets of Sheffield on Saturday 3 October to protest against the inhuman treatment of asylum seekers by the authorities in Britain.

Refugee rights and anti racist campaigners took to the streets of Sheffield on Saturday 3 October to protest against the inhuman treatment of asylum seekers by the authorities in Britain.

On 22 October, MPs will vote on the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill. As well as several anti-choice, anti-women amendments, there are real opportunities to extend abortion rights — including access to abortion for women in Northern Ireland, an end to the two doctor rule, increasing the pool of abortion practitioners, allowing more local abortion services and banning misleading advertising.

On Saturday 18 October the fascist British People’s Party are planning a racist march to HMV, Leeds, against rap music. As with the BNP leader Nick Griffin’s recent rally in Stoke this is a test to see if fascists can once again openly organise on the streets of Britain.

The eyes of the world may be transfixed by the spectacle of the race for the White House, but there’s another election in November that deserves some attention. New Zealand is going to the polls.

IRAQ: A leading gay activist in Iraq has been assassinated.
Last month, 27 year old Bashar the coordinator of Iraqi LGBT in Baghdad and a university student, was assassinated in a barber shop.

The timely death of the Austrian far right “guru” Jörg Haider is a cause for a double celebration.

John McDonnell MP: we have no say in this deal

The government have come out with their statement, possibly the worst deal you could have, you shove in up to £50 billion... you get non-executive directors... we have no say whatsoever... this idea that they’ll control bonuses on executive pay for a limited period of time; they’re going to set up an arms-length body to monitor their investments... it’s laughable.

The history, politics and struggles of the rank-and-file Minnesota Teamsters in the 1930s provides countless examples of how effective socialist leadership can transform the working class movement.

At its congress in January this year, the Ligue Communiste Revolutionnaire, one of the main revolutionary socialist groups in France, decided on a drive to reach out and build “a new anti-capitalist party” (French initials NPA) from below. (See www.workersliberty.org/lcr-npa).

(Tune: “What Do You Want to Make Those Eyes at Me For?”)

Toiling along in light from morn ‘til night,

Wearin’ away your all for the Parasite;

On Sunday 5 October, my son Joe and his dad went to the “Autism and Music” concert at the Savoy Theatre in London.

Still trying to get your head round “sub-prime”, “structured finance” and “deleveraging”? You could have done worse than Robert Peston’s guide to how the Super Rich Fucked up all Our Lives. Here the basic mechanics of the financial crash were told quite well.

Rent-an-SWPer... at a price

Crestfallen though the SWP is these days, it still seems to be trying to pull something pretty outrageous in Stoke.

On September 28, supporters of the “Islamic Human Rights Commission” — actually an Islamist group with links to Islamic Republic of Iran — marched through London to mark “Al Quds day”.

Before the First World War most socialist groups and many individuals from around the world were grouped together in an organisation called the Second International (set up in 1889).

Listening to Sean, it felt like he was living on a different planet... I heard a caricature description of the left. I felt “is he talking to the SWP or is he talking to the CPGB, is he talking to people in this room or is he talking to people in his imagination?”

There is a basic thing missing the arguments of the comrades of the AWL... The world is not composed of a flat system of states which are all equal to one another. The... inequality between these states is not purely economic...

I’m the editor of the Weekly Worker... The Weekly Worker does not publish lies... It’s counter-productive to tell lies, especially when you’re engaged in polemics against another organisation. It’s counterproductive to misrepresent them knowingly.

Irene Bruegel, a founder of Jews for Justice for Palestinians, died on 6 October, at the age of 62, as the result of a liver disease.