IV477 - October 2014

IV477 October 2014 PDF magazine available to download
IV477 October 2014 PDF magazine available to download here

A revolution is usually defined as a time where simultaneously:

– Those at the bottom no longer want to “live as before”,
– Those at the top can no longer “maintain their domination in an unchanged form”,
– And this double impossibility leads to “the forcible entrance of the masses into the realm of rulership over their own destiny”.

Eric Toussaint was interviewed by Tassos Tsakiroglou for ?fimerida ton Syntakton (The Editors Journal)  [1]

We are publishing this is very interesting and important statement from NUMSA, COSATU’s biggest affiliate. It is probable that on 7 November NUMSA will be expelled from COSATU and that this will precipitate a re-organisation of the trade union movement and accelerate the process towards the formation of a new workers’ party or movement for socialism. [BA for IVP]

Israeli politicians and security forces race to outdo each other with proposals of how increased institutional violence against Jerusalem’s Palestinian population will “bring quiet” back to the city. With their doctrine of what doesn’t work with force will work with more force, it is as if the two Palestinian intifadas had not occurred and Israel has no direct experience that a political conflict can never be solved with military means.

This follows part 1 of the article A review of the origins and development of the revolutionary process (part 1).

Thousands of us who traveled to New York City to participate in the People’s Climate March and the activities surrounding the Sunday, September 21st action have now returned home, organizing reportbacks and thinking about how this event pushed the movement forward.

Since the end of September, Mexico has been shaken by a growing wave of protest in response to the murder of four students and the disappearance of 43 students in the southeastern state of Guerrero. The first day of solidarity with the students of Ayotzinapa took place on 8 October and a second international day of action on 22 October.

On December 31, 2013, in his New Year greetings, French Socialist president Francois Hollande proposed: “a pact of responsibility to businesses. It is based on a simple principle: reduced labour costs, fewer constraints on their activities and, in return, more hiring and more social dialogue." This was a direct response to the demands made by the MEDEF, the main French employers’ organization, and its president Pierre Gattaz.

On Sunday, October 12, Bolivians voted to re-elect Evo Morales Ayma, Bolivia’s incumbent president, with an overwhelming 60% of the vote. Morales has indeed gained widespread popular support through his anti-imperialist and socialist policies, with even the World Bank forced to recognise the successes of his social programmes. His government has fallen short, however, of the revolutionary promises it was first elected on. That is why it is important to ask: how far do Morales’ reforms truly go?