The Dutch Socialist Party: From Sect to Mass Party

DE JONG Alex

2014-10-08 01-De-Jong-AlexThe Dutch Socialist Party went from fringe force to national contender. But it lost its soul along the way.

In many Western countries, the far left remains dominated by groups rooted in the radicalization of the 1960s. Most never became more than propaganda outfits of a few hundred members. The Socialist Party (SP) in the Netherlands is an exception. What started as just another left splinter developed into a mass party that seems posed to become the largest left of center force in the country.

The May 2014 municipal elections saw a dramatic change in the politics of the Dutch capital of Amsterdam: for the first time since its foundation in 1946, the social-democratic Labour Party (PvdA) disappeared from the municipal executive. Instead, two right-wing parties formed a coalition with the SP. So far, the Socialist Party’s attempts to overtake the PvdA nationally have failed, but it’s on the more established party’s heels.

Argentina passes law to establish debt audit commission

 by Jubilee Debt Campaign

2014-10-05 01 Argentina-deudaArgentina has legislated to create a commission to investigate the origin of the country’s debt, dating back to the military dictatorship of 1976 to 1983. The law states that once the commission has been established, it will report within 180 days. Campaigners in Argentina have been calling for a public audit into the debt, to discover if any loans were odious or illegitimate, and hence should not be paid. It is not yet clear when the commission will be established.

The move comes as the South American country continues to resist the activities of vulture funds NML Capital and Aurelius Capital Management who are seeking a gigantic profit out of Argentina. The two vulture funds have refused to accept a debt restructuring agreed by 93% of other creditors, and have had their claim backed by a US court, preventing Argentina from paying their debts to everyone else.

Occupy Hong Kong – An update on events of the last few days

BAI Ruixue

2014-10-02 02 Hong Kong2In the last few days the Occupy Central movement has continued to grow phenomenally. Following a very tense day and night on Sunday as police continually tried to disperse the protesters with force, firing numerous rounds of teargas, the large numbers and protesters determination to keep the roads meant that on Monday morning the streets were still occupied and the riot police were withdrawn from attacking the protesters. The atmosphere in Central by Monday night was a complete contrast to the night before as calm ensued and thousands more arrived to participate in the protests, appalled by the government's response and use of force the day before, to occupy large sections of the roads and calls for the Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying to step down were repeatedly shouted by the crowd. Thousands of protesters again stayed on the streets overnight on Tuesday, despite at times being battered by heavy rain, and yesterday was then National Day -the original planned start date of Occupy Central. However those initial plans of the OC leadership trio have long become worthless, paling in comparison to the dynamic the movement has taken on and the actions of ordinary people in their struggle for democracy. With a two day public holiday and many not having to go to work, even larger numbers have come out to take part. Protesters have gathered in their thousands over the last few days not just in Central District, but in Mong Kok and Causeway Bay, and yesterday also spread to Tsim Tsa Tsui.

Hong-Kong : Occupy Central—What's Next for the Democracy Movement?

A Brief Observation on the Current Movement

AU Loong-Yu

2014-10-02 01 Hong Kong1Monday 29th September 2014/Occupy Central Day 3 - Occupy central continues to grow by leaps and bounds.
I. The Situation

The general public has come out to support the students, and with their own bodies have resisted the tear gas to defeat the offensive of the regime of Leung Chun-ying, better known as C.Y. Leung, the Chief Executive of the Executive Council of Hong-Kong, sparking a new generation of people's democracy activists. This movement has the following characteristics:

1. The students and the public have shown that they have the ability to think for themselves, to take bottom-up direct action, without relying on the leaders. It is within a context where the movement displays deep distrust of not only the Pan-Democracy parties, but also of the Trio of three leading liberal academics and clergymen who suggested the occupation a year earlier. Even the Hong-Kong Federation of Students, which was for a while the vanguard of the movement, saw its proposal to withdraw on September 28 in view of escalation of crackdown was rejected by the masses.

Fundamentalismo constitucional vs. legitimidad democrática

Jaime Pastor*

2014-09-30 01 Jaime-PastorCon una rapidez sin precedentes, el Tribunal Constitucional ha admitido a trámite los recursos presentados por el gobierno contra la ley de consultas del Parlament catalán y el decreto, firmado por el President de la Generalitat, de convocatoria de una consulta no vinculante el próximo 9 de noviembre. Pretende, además, paralizar no sólo la consulta sino también “las restantes actuaciones de preparación para la convocatoria de dicha consulta o vinculadas a ella”. De esta forma, una suspensión cautelar “exprés” sitúa en la ilegalidad a una mayoría social y política en Cataluña.

The largest climate protest in American history

Climate Convergence Moves Us Forward, but Challenges Us to Create a Strategy

LA BOTZ Dan

2014-09-28 01 La-Botz-DanThe Global Climate Convergence [1] with its more than one hundred workshops, its large plenary sessions, and its miles-long mass march of more than 300,000 people, the largest climate protest in American history, represents a turning point for the environmental movement. The gigantic and passionate parade of indigenous people, ethnic groups of all sorts from everywhere in the country, students by the tens of thousands, neighborhood organizations by the dozen, several major national labor unions, and every conceivable sort of ecological cause tramping through New York City carrying huge banners and giant puppets, striding and dancing to the tunes of 29 marching bands, put the issue of the environment and climate change on the national agenda as never before. The national climate movement has arrived—now what will it do?

¿Después de Escocia, Catalunya?

Esther Vivas

2014-09-24 01 Esther-Vivas  Escocia ya ha votado, ¿Catalunya lo va a hacer? El parlamento catalán ha aprobado este viernes la ley de consultas que así lo permite. Un 78,5% de la cámara le ha dado su apoyo. Y lo que es más importante: un millón 800 mil personas lo exigieron el pasado 11 de septiembre en una masiva movilización en la capital catalana.
 Sin embargo, el Reino Unido no es España, ni David Cameron es Mariano Rajoy. No lo digo porque tenga una especial simpatía por el “Imperio británico” ni por su primer ministro, más bien al contrario, no olvidemos el pasado opresor y colonial del Imperio y la política de recortes de los conservadores. Pero sí que estos días hemos visto que en algunos países hay una democracia de primera y en otros una de segunda. Y la democracia española, visto lo visto, está a años luz de jugar la Champions.

Declaration before the Ban Ki-Moon Climate Summit: Mobilize and organize to Stop and Prevent Planet Fever!

Collective

2014-09-20 03 Planet-fever

When we, as human beings, get a fever, we immediately get worried and take action. After all, we know that if our body temperature rises to 1.5ºC, let alone 2ºC [3.6 ºF] above the normal average, there can be severe damage, while an increase of 4-6ºC [7.2-10.8 ºF] or more can cause a comatose situation and even death.

So it is, when planet Earth gets a fever. For the past 11,000 years, the average temperature of the Earth has been around 14ºC [57.2ºF]. It is now about to reach an increase of 1ºC. And, if we do not take appropriate measures now to stop this fever from spreading, the forecast is that our planet will be well on its way to anywhere between 2ºC to 6ºC rise in temperature before the end of this century. Under such feverish conditions, life as we know it will dramatically change on planet Earth.

September 18, 2014 referendum: Why the international left should support a yes vote for Scottish independence

CONWAY Terry

2014-09-15 01 scotlandOn 18 September 2014 one of the most important votes in the history of the British state will take place when people living in Scotland have the opportunity to vote on whether the country should become independent from the rest of Britain.

The polls currently suggest that those who wish to maintain the Union will probably win a narrow majority, but the reality is that the result is probably too close to call [1] following two high profile TV debates between the pro-independence Scottish National Party leader (SNP) and Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond, and pro-union Labour MP and former Cabinet member Alistair Darling, leader of the Better Together campaign. [2]

الرئيسية ملفات دراسية شبكات أطاك المغرب لات

ATTAC CADTM MAROC : Solidarité avec les 595 femmes de ménage grecques

2014-09-14 02 595-femmesL'association Attac Maroc salue le courage des 595 femmes de ménage grecques de la Fonction publique, en lutte depuis 11 mois contre leur licenciement et les mesures d'austérité et de dégraissage de la Fonction publique imposées par le gouvernement grec sous tutelle des Institutions financières internationales et de l'Union européenne.

Ces mêmes politiques, nous les connaissons ici aussi au Maroc et elles nous ont été imposées, tout comme en Grèce, par les plans d'ajustement structurels mis en place par le FMI et la Banque mondiale, qui nous ont d'abord artificiellement endettés afin de nous imposer les privatisations, le démantèlement de la fonction public et la libéralisation des services. Ici comme chez vous, ce sont les femmes qui en paient le prix fort et elles aussi ont mené d'importantes luttes, notamment contre la libéralisation de la santé publique.

To curtail the development of emancipation movements: World Bank and IMF support to dictatorships

Series: Bretton Woods, the World Bank and the IMF : 70th anniversary (Part 8)

Éric Toussaint

2014-09-14 01 Toussaint-Eric  After the Second World War, in a growing number of Third World countries, policies diverged from those of the former colonial powers. This trend encountered firm opposition from the governments of the major industrialised capitalist countries whose influence held sway with the World Bank (WB) and the IMF. WB projects have a strong political content: to curtail the development of movements challenging the domination/rule of major capitalist powers. The prohibition against taking “political” and “non-economic” considerations into account in WB operations, one of the most important provisions of its charter, is systematically circumvented. The political bias of the Bretton Woods institutions is shown by their financial support to dictatorships ruling in Chile, Brazil, Nicaragua, Congo-Kinshasa and Romania.

Independence for Catalonia? With the November 9 consultation, the moment of truth approaches

ANTENTAS Josep Maria

2014-09-08 03 AntentasThere is no doubt. The moment of truth approaches. But which? The coming months will be worth years. For better or worse they can lead to an acceleration and a point of irreversible movement towards the breaking of the institutional framework created in 1978, or can represent the epic collapse of the process initiated in 2012, leaving behind a legacy of cynicism and frustration without comparison.

The first measures of the script of the coming weeks seem clear. After the mobilization of 11-S the Mas government [of the Generalitat of Catalonia] will approve the Law of Consultations [concerning the independence vote] and then, sign the decree for calling of the consultation, which will probably be suspended by the Constitutional Court.

The fight for socialism in Slovenia and the IDS

KORSIKA Anej, ROBERTSON James

2014-09-05 03 Anej KorsikaJames Robertson: Let’s start with a brief history of the Initiative for Democratic Socialism (IDS) and its role in the formation of the Združena levica (UL, United Left) earlier this year. What are the origins of IDS?

Anej Korsika: The Initiative for Democratic Socialism, to use the old cliche, has a short history and a long past. Officially, the party was founded on the 8th of March this year. However when one wants to grasp the gradual formation of the party, one needs to take into consideration a much longer timeline. Before Slovenia entered NATO in 2004, there was a strong civil initiative that opposed joining such a military organization. There was also opposition to the support of the invasion of Iraq (Slovenia was among the countries that signed the disgraceful Vilnius letter [1]). There were domestic issues that mobilized civil society, such as the case of the erased [2] and migrant workers. These and many other “anomalies” depicted a more sinister picture of the so-called “success story” that domestic and foreign politicians liked to call Slovenia. Apart from such initiatives, there were also a couple of student associations and progressive professors that encouraged critical thinking. The Institute for Labour Studies (former Workers’ and Punks’ University) played a very important role here. It was one of a handful of places where one could seriously engage with critical political economy and conceptually equip oneself to systematically and thoroughly understand the dynamics of contemporary capitalism.

100 years ago: World War I and Its Century

RUFF Allen

2014-08-30 04 Ruff-AllenIN HIS AGE of Extremes, the great Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm marked the start of World War I in August, 1914 as the beginning of the “short twentieth century.”

In Hobsbawm’s account, that short century ended with the reunification of Germany and the breakup of the Soviet “East Bloc” in 1989-90. The “Great War” of 1914-1918, he argued, was the defining event of the century.

With the dismemberment of Yugoslavia underway in the early 1990s as he wrote, Hobsbawm observed that the inter-communal strife reignited in the “Balkan tinderbox” represented the “old chickens of Versailles once again coming home to roost” — meaning that the repercussions of the punitive peace imposed outside Paris in 1919 were reverberating over 70 years later. Were he alive today, he certainly would note how some of the wounds of that “war to end all wars” continue to fester.

The Second International and the First World War – Responding to capitalist global disaster: 1914 and today

John Riddell

2014-08-25 01 RiddellThe Second International and the First World War – Responding to capitalist global disaster: 1914 and today

Table of contents:

 On this day one hundred years ago, a Bosnian nationalist assassinated the crown prince of Austria-Hungary, setting in motion a chain of events that led a month later to the outbreak of the First World War. The war shattered the world socialist movement and unleashed an overwhelming social catastrophe in Europe, killing seventeen million soldiers and civilians. The resulting revolutionary struggles brought the war to an abrupt end in 1918, while toppling the continent’s three great empires and bringing workers and peasants to power in Russia. The war also contributed to a global rise of anti-colonial struggles.What does this unique cataclysm mean for us today? It is useful to compare World War 1 with the dangers posed today by climate change and environmental collapse.The world is still ruled by arrogant imperial powers, which wage and threaten wars in many continents. Still, these powers do not seem to be on the verge of hurling themselves at each other in a global war as they did in 1914. Meanwhile, the colonial empires have given way to new forms of domination. We face a looming environmental disaster, but it will mature over decades, not weeks. The socialist movement is far weaker and less militant than in 1914. The road to socialism now seems more extended than it did at that time.Yet many aspects of the socialist response to the First World War have resonance in our time. It is particularly helpful in defining the socialist response to climate change and in clarifying some disputed issues in this arena.