“The workers... battle-cry must be: 'The Permanent Revolution.'” — Marx and Engels, 1850
Tue 23, March 2010 @ 09:58
The protest against the racist EDL was a strong demonstration of the unity of trade unionists against racism and fascism. The trade union movement was at the heart of the protest against the EDL. Contingents and banners from UNISON, UNITE, PCS, USDAW, NUT, RMT, NUJ, TSSA, UCU as well as a number of trades councils.
Mon 22, March 2010 @ 16:20
On Friday 19th March over 100 trade unionists and activists gathered together outside UBS HQ in London in support of UBS cleaners and Alberto Durango (victimized cleaner and Unite shop steward for the UBS branch).
This was the third protest outside UBS but it was the first day of international solidarity as protests were organized outside UBS branches in New York, Zurich, Buenos Aires, Edinburgh and Manchester.
Sun 21, March 2010 @ 22:05
I was in Bolton, and I want to write a factual and reasonably unbiased account of what I saw, leaving commentary and criticism to others, but I don’t think I'll be able to give an honest account of what happened without criticizing UAF. I know it's a cliché to blanket criticize the SWP, but on this occasion I think their conduct deserves it....writes Bolton anti-fascist....
Sun 21, March 2010 @ 12:50
Cecilia (Lex's wife) & family are going to visit Lex again next weekend and need money to do this.
Sun 21, March 2010 @ 10:18
The pilots were asked to give savings of 5% of their annual budget. Not so difficult when you earn £100,000+. Cabin crew have been asked to save 15%. Fair?
Sun 21, March 2010 @ 09:58
A gang of organised racists occupied Bolton Town Centre on Saturday 21st March. They assaulted unarmed innocent people with weapons. They set dogs on women and children. They sent gangs “squads” into the packed crowd to snatch people doing nothing whatsoever and dragged them away to be assaulted and locked up. Greater Manchester Police were in town.
Fri 19, March 2010 @ 12:20
Fri 19, March 2010 @ 00:00
Friday
19th March will see an international day of action in solidarity
with cleaners at Swiss bank UBS in the City of London. The cleaners
are facing cuts in working hours – effectively an 11 percent wage
cut – and shop steward Alberto Durango has been sacked. The
day of action follows two strong and vibrant demonstrations on 12th
February and 5th March at UBS’s 100 Liverpool Street site in
London.
Wed 17, March 2010 @ 17:15
Sat 13, March 2010 @ 10:57
I write to you about the election for General Secretary (GS) of Unite which this time round will involve the whole union, unlike last year’s election for Joint General Secretary which was only held in the Amicus section.
Sat 13, March 2010 @ 02:28
Full time officials from Unison's London Regional Office led
teams of staff into branch offices in Bromley and Woolwich in South
East London taking control away from locally elected
officials.
The Tenant Services authority branch was also placed under regional
control.
Wed 10, March 2010 @ 23:19
Manchester No Borders will be supporting the demonstration organised by the Congo Support Project this Saturday in support of the Congolese living in Manchester under threat of deportation.
Wed 10, March 2010 @ 08:02
The fascist EDL is coming to Bolton. This statement of Bolton trade unionists calls for antiracists and trade unionists from across the country to mobilise against the EDL.
Mon 08, March 2010 @ 21:20
The radical left in Argentina is organizing a demonstration in Buenos Aires for international women's day. An interview with Andrea D'Atri, spokeswoman for the Argentinean women's organization "Pan y Rosas (Bread and Roses), connected with the "Partido de Trabajadores Socialistas" (Socialist Workers' Party).
Mon 08, March 2010 @ 17:53
This earthquake at 8.8 at the epicentre on the Richter scale was one of the most powerful Chile has ever witnessed, and lasted almost three minutes….writes Diego Mocar… even though the city of Santiago is several hundred kilometres from the epicentre, the level of intensity for us here in Santiago was 7.8 on the Richter scale.
Mon 08, March 2010 @ 17:38
The German elections at the end of September produced a new right wing coalition government of Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) and Guido Westerwelle’s neo-liberal Free Democrats (FDP). The Social Democrats (SPD) went down to a disastrous defeat, suffering their worst defeat for 60 years and securing only 23% of the popular vote, an 11% fall compared to the last election in 2005.
Mon 08, March 2010 @ 17:35
In PR 14 we ran an interview between a member of the MPT of Chile and a member of the New Anti-Capitalist Party (NPA) of France. The development of the NPA has been watched by the whole European left. At the end of 2009 the independent youth group Revolution in the Czech Republic launched a unity project (NAL) initially aimed at the various organisations who declare themselves revolutionary and anti-capitalist. Wvadek Flakin, of the independent youth group Revolution in Germany, interviewed two of the participants
Mon 08, March 2010 @ 17:33
The coup in Iran, that took place through the June presidential elections, is five months old and the victors give the appearance of being firmly in the saddle. But in Iran appearances are deceptive. The large anti-government demonstrations that took place on the last Friday of the month of Ramadan (18 September), and again on the anniversary of the occupation of the US embassy on 4 November
Mon 08, March 2010 @ 17:18
The US Marxist economist Robert Brenner has been highly influential as a leading stagnation theorist of modern capitalism. Bill Jefferies lays bare some fundamental flaws in Brenner’s understanding of the world economy in a review of a recent paper...writes Bill Jefferies
Mon 08, March 2010 @ 17:07
WIll Hutton, in his Guardian review of this book earlier this year, described it as, “in essence another of the Beware China is coming, Asian values are superior books.” Notwithstanding the fact that Jacques isn’t fearful of China coming, this was an unnecessarily dismissive assessment. It is undoubtedly true that many works have been published in recent years on the rise of China, but it is also true that this is one of the most authoritative and thought-provoking ones so far.
Mon 08, March 2010 @ 17:06
The traditional account of Charles Darwin’s discovery of evolution by natural selection has the young man embarking on his round the world journey aboard HMS Beagle in 1831, and being struck by the variety of birds he saw on different islands.
Mon 08, March 2010 @ 17:03
Timing in politics, like comedy, is everything. In the run up to the Copenhagen G20 summit on climate change, a series of emails over a number of years from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) in the UK, were posted on the internet attempting to discredit the science behind climate change. They purport to show leading scientists trying to suppress papers that did not support their views from getting put before the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Mon 08, March 2010 @ 17:02
Leslie T Chang is a Wall Street Journal correspondent who has spent a decade living in China including in Dongguan, a huge metropolis just North of Shenzen, a city that has grown from nothing in a few years like many others in the special economic zones of China’s Southern coast.
Mon 08, March 2010 @ 17:01
David King is the former art editor of the Sunday Times Colour Magazine. But that doesn’t even begin to describe his life’s quest. More than any other author he has sought to put Trotsky back in the pictorial history of the October 1917 Revolution and USSR. His latest book Red Star Over Russia, continues that work, but does much more. Through an incisive commentary and compelling series of images juxtaposing art works, posters, photos and the printed page, he literally shows the process of Stalinist degeneration and decay of the first workers’revolution.
Mon 08, March 2010 @ 16:57
After the Honduran elections on 29 November the bourgeois press was triumphant. The newspaper El Heraldo proclaimed: “Honduras defeats abstentionism with a massive turnout”. The same evening, the Supreme Electoral Court declared that participation had been around 65%, far higher even than the participation in the presidential elections of 2005, which had been just 46%.
Mon 08, March 2010 @ 16:53
The cost of rescuing the world’s banks over the last 18 months has been estimated at about 5% of world GDP. Several years ago Nicholas Stern said that investment in carbon reduction measures to tackle climate change would cost about 1% of global output if the world’s governments acted straight away.
Mon 08, March 2010 @ 13:43
Sat 06, March 2010 @ 18:30
NUT members will be receiving ballot papers this week in elections for the Union’s Executive. It is obviously crucial that left candidates are elected and put to the test of office.
In the Inner London Executive elections, however, there are no right wing candidates. PR is calling for a critical vote for the Socialist Party’s Martin Powell-Davies and the SWP’s Sara Tomlinson. Why are we calling on NUT members not to vote for the other “left” candidate, Alex Kenny of the Socialist Teachers Alliance (STA)?
Thu 04, March 2010 @ 20:20
Permanent
Revolution 16 from March is available for download with articles on
the British general election, New Labour and the Tories. Plus much
more...
Wed 03, March 2010 @ 17:20
Over the winter of 2008/9 as trade plunged and industrial production followed it the Great Depression seemed to have arrived. According to Chris Harman capitalism faced either a Great Depression at worst or ten years of stagnation at best. How wrong can you get?....writes Bill Jefferies....
Mon 01, March 2010 @ 08:42
Chile earthquake has resulted in hundreds and hundreds of dead according to official figures of the central government. It is clear that the catastrophic effects of the earthquake in the early hours of February 27 have beaten particularly hard working people, the poor of Chile, and the exploited and oppressed people.
