International Viewpoint - online socialist magazine

IV457 - February 2013 PDF

robm — 2013-02-28T10:54:00Z

IV 457 February 2013 available for download af a PDF file here

- IV457 - February 2013 / PDF

Italian Elections - some initial comments

Andrea Martini — 2013-02-28T04:06:14Z

This comment was published on the Sinistra Critica website on 25 February as the results were still coming in. However, underlying trends in the results seemed clear.

- IV457 - February 2013 / Italy

A fresh breach in a worn-down regime

Jesus Rodriguez — 2013-02-27T07:59:36Z

Information about corrupt politicians is invading daily life in the Spanish state. This comes on top of the devastating effects of neo-liberal policies; rising levels of unemployment and debt, downward pressure on wages, the emigration of young people...

- IV457 - February 2013

The Empire in Decline

David Finkel , Gilbert Achcar — 2013-02-25T17:35:28Z

Gilbert Achcar is professor at the School of Oriental and African Studies of the University of London. His most recent book was The Arabs and the Holocaust. The Arab-Israeli War of Narratives (New York: Metropolitan, 2010). His next book, The People Want: A Radical Exploration of the Arab Uprising, is scheduled for publication in June 2013 (Los Angeles: University of California Press). He was interviewed by David Finkel from the Against the Current editorial board.

- IV457 - February 2013 / United States (USA), MENA (Middle East/North Africa), War drive/Anti-war movements, Arab Revolutions

The deal that wasn't – Ireland enters its second bail-out

John McAnulty — 2013-02-24T14:22:35Z

A night of chaos on Wednesday 6th February in the Irish Dail was justified by unsupported claims of a press leak. It was however strongly reminiscent of the scenes in 2008 when the previous government mortgaged Ireland to bail out the banks and concluded with the Fine Gael and Labour coalition voting through a draconian piece of legislation. The legislation liquidated the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation (IBRC), holding the promissory note guaranteeing the debts of Anglo-Irish bank an Irish Nationwide. The vote was taken after TDs were given 10 minutes to read the 68 page document.

- IV457 - February 2013 / Ireland, European Union

Political Initiative of the Popular Front

2013-02-20T16:00:17Z

We reproduce here the statement by the Popular Front* adopted after the mobilization that followed the assassination on February 6 of Chokri BelaÃ¯d, leader of the Party of United Democratic Patriots and a leader of the Popular Front. Chokri BelaÃ¯d was one of the lawyers who had defended the accused in the Gafsa mining basin under the dictatorship of Ben Ali.

- IV457 - February 2013 / Tunisia, Arab Revolutions

The revolt spreads

Lucien Perpette — 2013-02-20T15:36:13Z

Slovenia, a country of two million inhabitants which was once the jewel in the crown of Yugoslavia's industrial economy, and the first Republic to separate from Yugoslavia and become a member of the European Union and the Euro zone, is experiencing a serious social and political crisis which could have significant repercussions for the future of other countries where capitalism has been restored.

- IV457 - February 2013 / Slovenia

An alternative to the Troika

Peter Drucker — 2013-02-18T09:24:42Z

The programme of austerity imposed on Portugal in response to the crisis has been one of the most humanly devastating in Europe. And nowhere in Europe has popular resistance been more massive or determined. Yet so far the parties of austerity continue to dominate Portuguese politics. The governing parties of the right (the confusingly named Social Democratic Party and People's Party) face only sham opposition from the Socialist Party, which itself imposed the first harsh cuts until the elections of June 2011 sent it into opposition. The Left Bloc (Bloco da Esquerda) is working to create a real left-wing alternative that can win a popular majority and throw the Troika's ultimatums into the rubbish bin. Grenzeloos (magazine of the Dutch section of the Fourth International) talked in Lisbon to Jorge Costa of the Left Bloc's top leadership body about the challenges the Bloc faces.

- IV457 - February 2013 / Portugal, New parties of the left

Organizing for Socialism and Freedom in Brazil: an interview with PSOL activist Rodrigo Santaella

Rodrigo Santaella — 2013-02-18T08:13:26Z

Against the Current interviewed Rodrigo Santaella, a member of the revolutionary socialist organization Enlace and an activist in the Brazilian Socialism and Freedom Party (PSOL). We met him at the Fourth International's Ecosocialism School in Amsterdam in December 2012 . This annual, three-week school serves as an intensive Marxist political education for FI members and allies. Readings and audio of presentations from the school can be found here.
PSOL emerged out of the Brazilian Workers Party (PT) in 2004. The PT was originally a radical left party which the FI section in Brazil was instrumental in building. With the election of Lula da Silva in 2002, however, the party took a decisive turn to the right and began implementing a neoliberal program. A section of the party's left-wing exited the PT and eventually founded PSOL, in an effort to create an anti-capitalist alternative to the PT. Rodrigo discusses this process and the state of PSOL and the Brazilian left today. For a more detailed discussion of the PT's political trajectory, see JoÃ£o Machado's article "The Experience of Building the DS and PT, from 1979 to the first Lula government."

- IV457 - February 2013 / Brazil, New parties of the left

Appeal by Women of Mali: Say “No!'” to the war by proxy

2013-02-16T21:01:46Z

While the two jaws of the Malian trap - the warmongering Western intervention backed by the countries of West Africa, and the reactionary Islamism in the North - have not yet closed, an independent voice, the voice of Malian women, is trying to make heard its refusal of this war by proxy. We publish below their appeal, which is dated November 20, 2012.

- IV457 - February 2013 / Women, Mali