President Donald Trump has virtually declared war on Iran with the assassination of Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, leader of Iran’s elite Quds Force, in an airstrike near Baghdad International Airport. The assassination of Suleimani will very likely lead to war, though it is unclear how such a war will develop and what form it will take. How do American socialists decide our position on this new situation?
Australia’s dark age of climate catastrophe
10 January 2020, byIt is impossible to find words appropriate to the immensity and horror of Australia’s bushfire catastrophe. Day in day out for months on end we’ve been bombarded with harrowing images and accounts of death and destruction – of roaring walls of flame over 100 metres high; of deadly “fire tornadoes” powerful enough to flip fire trucks; of bushfires creating their own super-cell thunderstorms with lightning strikes sparking new blazes ahead of existing fronts; of giant plumes of smoke turning day into eerie, pitch-dark night; of thousands forced to huddle on beaches and cower on boats as ash and embers rain down on them and their communities burn before their eyes; of convoys of evacuees stuck on roads blocked by flames, while others await evacuation by sea; of whole towns burnt to ashes by fires so intense that no fire fighting force on Earth could stop them.
Struggling under the flag of solidarity, facing repression, in a fractured country
9 January 2020, byThe student mobilization on 29 November 2019 had a deep echo across Pakistan. Affirming solidarity with all the discriminated and exploited sectors of society, it became a rallying point for a wide range of social and progressive movements in a country and a state undermined by numerous regional, national or religious fractures and by abysmal social inequalities.
Must Labour move right to secure its working-class base?
8 January 2020, byPhil Hearse argues that the Blairite Right and Lexit Left are drawing all the wrong conclusions from the general election.
British Conservative Party tacks right
7 January 2020, byThe election of Boris Johnson as Prime Minister and the bitter defeat of the hopes of the Labour left represent a deeper cultural and institutional shift in the politics of the British Conservative and Unionist Party. They are not fools, the entitled gang who head the party, and the election and its aftermath has seen some canny moves that ride the wave of xenophobic reaction harnessed and amplified by the 2016 EU membership referendum.
We Must Call a Coup a Coup
6 January 2020, byIn November, the Bolivian military forced Evo Morales to step down: the classic definition of a coup. Despite the evidence, some commentators — even on the Left — have failed to identify it for what it was: an elite plot to oust a progressive president whose program of reforms had transformed the lives of many of the country’s most excluded people.
Why we left the Awami Workers Party. Lessons to be learned
5 January 2020, byFarooq Tariq and other former members of the LPP (Labour Party Pakistan) issued this statement on 5 January 2020.
Oppose U.S. and Iran War by Showing Solidarity with Uprisings in the MENA Region
5 January 2020, byThis statement was issued by the Alliance of Middle Eastern and North African Socialists on 3 January 2020.
1995-2003-2010: lessons from three large-scale mobilizations
4 January 2020, byThe French trade-union movement is currently engaged in the longest strike movement for more than 50 years. For almost a month, since 5 December 2019, the strike has been massive in the transport sector (railways and Paris region public transport). The third most-mobilized sector – teachers – returns to work and strike on Monday 6 January after the two-week end-of-year break and it is expected that their strike action will continue.
Pushing back Mitsotakis and the far right
3 January 2020, byThe Greek right, which has always emphasized that the government of Syriza could only be a parenthesis, therefore took over the reins of power in July 2019 without being able to hide its deep joy at inflicting a deep defeat on the left. By insolently relying on an extreme right-wing current ranging from the former fascist “axe-killer” Voridis, who has become Minister of Agricultural Development, to the nationalist current of the former extreme neoliberal Prime Minister Samaras, Mitsotakis immediately wanted to take all the reins of power, without worrying about the quality of the minions to whom he entrusted responsibilities: the result is a head of the secret services who lied about his diplomas, ditto for the soldier to whom he has just entrusted the responsibility of the “management” of refugees, a racist nationalist who dreams only of concentration camps. To tourism, he appointed a known speculator and admirer of the colonels’ junta - a great image for the tourist profile.