Links editor
Guest
|
 Posted: Fri May 16, 2008 8:39 am Post subject: What's new at Links: Obama; Marx: India and hunger; food cri |
 |
|
Subscribe free to /Links - International Journal of Socialist Renewal/
- at http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=343373
Visit and bookmark http://links.org.au and add it to your RSS feed
(http://links.org.au/rss.xml). If you would like us to
consider an article, please send it to links@dsp.org.au
Please pass on to anybody you think will be interested in /Links./
Barack Obama, Reverend Wright and Black liberation theology
<http://www.links.org.au/node/399>
By *Malik Miah*
The groundswell of broad support for Barack Obama (both among Blacks
and whites) is a phenomenon that deserves a serious analysis and
understanding. It cannot be downplayed by passing it through the lens
of pure-and-simple lesser-evilism.
Some radicals dismiss the mass phenomenon, because Obama is a
candidate of a ruling-class party. That simplistic rejection of
Obama's campaign and its mass support is sectarian: The issue isn't
whether to vote for a Democrat, but rather our response to a
development that is having a wide-scale impact. How many times, in
state after state, have we ever seen citizens of all races line up for
hours to hear an African-American man talk about "hope'', on a
platform that is fundamentally no different than his opponents?
* Read more <http://www.links.org.au/node/399>
Adding insult to injury: Bush says starving India eats too much
<http://www.links.org.au/node/393>
By *Kavita Krishnan*
May 7, 2008 -- Karl Marx, born on 5 May, 1818, nearly two centuries
ago, had in 1867 laid bare the ``intimate connection between the pangs
of hunger of the most industrious layers of the working class, and the
extravagant consumption, coarse or refined, of the rich, for which
capitalist accumulation is the basis'' (/Capital/ <http://
www.resistancebooks.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=26_35&products_id=250>
Vol. 1, Ch. 25). In May 2008, nearly a century and a half later, as we
hear Emperor Bush hold forth on global hunger, we are reminded that
capitalism and global wealth remains just as intimately wedded to
hunger.
* Read more <http://www.links.org.au/node/393>
Are livable cities just a dream? <http://www.links.org.au/node/390>
By *Dave Holmes*
When one sees a modern city from the air, especially at night, it is a
truly awe-inspiring spectacle. What always strikes me is the immensity
of the project, a testimony to the power and creativity of human
beings. However, on the ground and actually living and working in this
wonder, things are quite different and the social and ecological
problems crowd in and fill one's view. The truth is that our cities
have always been dominated by the rich and powerful and built and
operated to serve their needs --- not those of the mass of working
people who live and toil in them.
* Read more <http://www.links.org.au/node/390>
Videos: Cuba's green revolution <http://www.links.org.au/node/416>
A clip from the BBC's /Around the World in 80 Gardens/ (2008)
introduces the urban organic food gardening revolution in Havana,
Cuba. Click HERE <http://www.links.org.au/node/416> for a three-part
talk by Cuban permaculturist Roberto Perez that delves deeper into
Cuba's green revolution, and an interview with the makers of /The
Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil/, the film in which
Perez featured.
* Read more <http://www.links.org.au/node/416>
Bolivia: Fraud, violence and mass resistance marks right-wing push
<http://www.links.org.au/node/400>
By *Federico Fuentes*
May 9, 2008 -- A day of violence, fraud and a "grand rebellion"
against the Santa Cruz oligarchy.
This is how Bolivian president, Evo Morales Ayma, described the result
of the unconstitutional May 4 "autonomy" referendum organised by the
authorities in Santa Cruz --- which many feared was aimed at dividing
Bolivia.
* Read more <http://www.links.org.au/node/400>
Musical interlude: Post-911 Blues <http://www.links.org.au/node/
398>
Hear and watch *Riz MC*'s classic ``Post-911 Blues'', click here
<http://www.links.org.au/node/397>
Global food crisis: 'The greatest demonstration of the historical
failure of the capitalist model' <http://www.links.org.au/node/395>
By *Ian Angus*
"If the government cannot lower the cost of living it simply has to
leave. If the police and UN troops want to shoot at us, that's OK,
because in the end, if we are not killed by bullets, we'll die of
hunger." /--- A demonstrator in Port-au-Prince, Haiti/
In Haiti, where most people get 22% fewer calories than the minimum
needed for good health, some are staving off their hunger pangs by
eating "mud biscuits" made by mixing clay and water with a bit of
vegetable oil and salt.[1]
Meanwhile, in Canada, the federal government is currently paying $225
for each pig killed in a mass cull of breeding swine, as part of a
plan to reduce hog production. Hog farmers, squeezed by low hog prices
and high feed costs, have responded so enthusiastically that the kill
will likely use up all the allocated funds before the program ends in
September. Some of the slaughtered hogs may be given to local Food
Banks, but most will be destroyed or made into pet food. None will go
to Haiti.
* Read more <http://www.links.org.au/node/395>
Three books on the life and thought of the `red terror doctor'
<http://www.links.org.au/node/394>
**Reviews by *Alex Miller*
* Read more <http://www.links.org.au/node/394>
Respect and the London election results
<http://www.links.org.au/node/392>
By *Nick Wrack* and *Alan Thornett*, Socialist Resistance <http://
socialistresistance.org/>
May 6, 2008 -- The New Labour project is falling apart at the seams.
Its local election results were the worst in 40 years, with only 24%
of the vote and coming third behind the Liberal Democrats. This is a
disastrous result for British Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown. In
London, the election of the Conservative Party's Boris Johnson as
mayor and the presence of a far-right British National Party (BNP)
member on the Greater London Assembly will disturb and depress all who
value the multi-cultural diversity of the city.
* Read more <http://www.links.org.au/node/392>
`Tipping point' in New Zealand politics at the grassroots: the
Residents Action Movement <http://www.links.org.au/node/391>
The *Residents Action Movement* (or *RAM*) is a left-wing local
government electoral ticket in the Auckland Regional Council of New
Zealand's largest city. RAM is in the process of becoming a national-
level political party to contest the 2008 elections. RAM can be
characterised as as broad left coalition, stretching from social
liberals, community activists and former National Party members to
social democrats, democratic socialists and left-wing radicals. Its
chairperson is currently Grant Morgan, who is also a leading member of
Socialist Worker (Aotearoa).
* Read more <http://www.links.org.au/node/391>
* * *
/Links/ seeks to promote the international exchange of information,
experience of struggle, theoretical analysis and views of political
strategy and tactics within the international left. It is a forum for
open and constructive dialogue between active socialists coming from
different political traditions. It seeks to bring together those in
the international left who are opposed to neoliberal economic and
social policies. It aims to promote the renewal of the socialist
movement in the wake of the collapse of the bureaucratic model of
"actually existing socialism" in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.
*
ATTENTION: Sign up for regular ``what's new'' announcement emails at
http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=343373 |
|
