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By Socialist Appeal
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Wednesday, 02 July 2008 |
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There are about 1 billion people in the world subsisting on
$1 a day or less. These people typically spend 80% of their income on food. For
them the present food price rises mean catastrophe. Why are so many going hungry? Why are food prices going up
all the time? These are the questions the United Nations Food and Agriculture
Organisation has been asking at its meeting this June. So far it hasn’t come up
with any solutions.
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By In Defence of Marxism
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Friday, 02 May 2008 |
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Yesterday workers all over the world were celebrating May Day. The general mood reflected the sharpening class contradictions and anger against capitalist misery, but also against the bureaucracy of the labour movement. Here we are publishing reports of our supporters from the USA, Greece, Austria, Switzerland, Britain and Spain (in Spanish).
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By Julian Sharpe
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Thursday, 10 April 2008 |
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This is a book that every young activist, trade unionist or socialist will
want to read. The book, based on historical examples from the past 190 years,
shows that the workers are facing basically the same problems as ever, in spite
of what any of our "post-modernist" friends would like us to believe.
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By Barbara Humphries
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Wednesday, 27 February 2008 |
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Most reviews of "Disaster capitalism" so far
have focussed on the use of natural disasters to change policies in favour of
the capitalists. But the book goes much further than this - it shows that it is
capitalism itself which is the disaster.
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By David May
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Monday, 11 February 2008 |
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The big corporations in North America, Western Europe and Japan are moving
more of their factories abroad in search of lower wages. But in the process they
are tying the interests of the international working class more closely
together. In global companies like Ford, the interests of a section of workers
on almost every continent are directly linked. The answer to capitalist
globalization is to link up workers’ struggle
worldwide.
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By Mick Brooks
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Wednesday, 03 January 2007 |
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In Britain and
internationally supermarket chains have come to dominate the food distribution
market. The tendency to monopolisation is evident. But with it go many
practices that literally endanger our health, and with it also working
conditions, wages, the environment and so on. The only answer is to take them
over, remove the profit motive and run them in the interests of all working
people.
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By Steve Jones - www.socialist.net
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Friday, 22 December 2006 |
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Marx long ago pointed out that the capitalist mode of
production naturally leads to greater and greater concentration of wealth in
the hands of the few. The recent report of the World Institute for Development Economics Research of the
United Nations University (UNU-WIDER) reveals how far this process has gone.
What better argument do we need for socialism?
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By Maarten Vanheuverswyn
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Friday, 07 July 2006 |
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The second richest man on earth, investor Warren
Buffett, made headlines last week with his plan to give away $37 billion of his
$44 billion fortune to charities. The main beneficiary will be the richest man
on earth, Bill Gates, who will put the cash in his Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation. There are, however, some glaring contradictions in this fairy tale.
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By Steve Jones
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Friday, 09 June 2006 |
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As the 2006 World Cup kicks off in Germany Steve Jones looks at the
commercialisation of football and the impact of profiteering on the
sport and the fans.
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By Mick Brooks
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Tuesday, 11 April 2006 |
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The dominant idea of contemporary
bourgeois thinking is that increasing international integration of
economic activity, or “globalisation” will lead to prosperity and
peace for all. But globalisation is not a concept that helps us
understand the world around us. It is an ideological construct used
to trumpet capitalist victory – to conceal the crisis-ridden nature
of the system and its perpetual failure to meet the needs of the
world’s working class.
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By Michael Roberts
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Wednesday, 07 December 2005 |
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Globalisation really means the rise of the American Empire. That was the capitalist story of the 20th century. The story of the 21st century will probably be the fall of the American empire as the imbalances in the system unravel. Will the world slip back into some new form of barbarism or will it be replaced by real globalisation, namely world socialism? |
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By Luca Lombardi
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Thursday, 27 October 2005 |
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We recently received this letter from a reader who made some criticisms of an article published some time ago on this website, The ILO and the myth of “fair globalisation”. We are also publishing a reply from the author. |
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By Phil Mitchinson
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Friday, 16 September 2005 |
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When the 'Great Deal'
on poverty and debt was announced at the G8 binge in Scotland in July, some people rushed to cheer it. Now, as the
real facts come out, the truth confirms the G8 promises for what they really
were. |
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By Phil Mitchinson
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Monday, 04 July 2005 |
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The Gleneagles G8 summit meeting will not go down in history as the day
world poverty ended. World musicians have been trying to raise
awareness about world poverty and put pressure on politicians. The next
day, George W Bush appeared on TV to reassure us that nothing concrete
will be done for the poor. Instead of appealing to these people we
should be organising to overthrow them and their rotten system. |
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By In Defence of Marxism
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Sunday, 03 July 2005 |
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In the wake of one of the largest demonstrations in the history of
Scotland, Edinburgh hosted one of the biggest political debates in the
country in recent times. Up to 4,500 people spread over five different
venues in the city centre participated in the G8 Alternatives Summit. |
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By In Defence of Marxism
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Sunday, 03 July 2005 |
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Today the Stop the War Coalition called for a demonstration against the
occupation in Iraq following up from yesterday's huge Make Poverty
History march. |
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By Ramon Samblas in Edinburgh
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Saturday, 02 July 2005 |
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Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators today rejected the fact that 2/3
of the world's population live on the poverty line. Ramon Samblas
reports from the Make Poverty History March in Edinburgh. |
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By In Defence of Marxism
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Saturday, 02 July 2005 |
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Marxist.com supporters from Edinburgh as well as Glasgow, London,
Cambridge, Birmingham, Newcastle, Cambridge and Liverpool joined
protesters at the Make Poverty History march today. Their aim was to
put forward the ideas of Marxism as the way to end capitalism – the
real cause of poverty nowadays. |
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By Hands Off Venezuela
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Saturday, 02 July 2005 |
The Hands Off Venezuela campaign had a good presence in today’s anti-G8
protests in Edinburgh. A couple of London based supporters joined their
comrades in Edinburgh to inform the protesters about what is happening
in Venezuela. Read the article on the Hands Off Venezuela website.
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By Fenia Van den Brande and Wim Benda
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Thursday, 30 June 2005 |
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As the G8 summit approaches the focus of the entire world is on Third
World debt. G8 leaders are expected to announce the cancellation of
debt for 18 of the world's poorest countries. Will this gesture
actually achieve anything, or is it simply an attempt on the part of
the imperialists to clean up their image? |
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By Ray Smith in Edinburgh
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Thursday, 30 June 2005 |
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Over the last month we have seen how all the various ideological
‘arguments’ of capitalism have been used to stop people from protesting
at the coming summit of the eight most important political
representatives of capitalism in the world. |
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By Brian Conlon in Edinburgh
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Wednesday, 29 June 2005 |
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The G8 is coming to town. During the G8 summit in Gleneagles we will
see a whole range of experts and analysts lecturing us about the
beauties and the problems of the world market, but that will only be a
smoke screen behind which to hide the real issue. |
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By Heather Scott
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Thursday, 23 June 2005 |
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Globalisation was supposed to bring progress and prosperity to the
Third World. The reality is that it has only brought more poverty and
misery. |
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By Mick Brooks
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Monday, 13 June 2005 |
 The
G8 countries are to meet at Gleneagles in July. In the build up to this
summit the Blair government has been making a lot of noise about debt
relief. But instead of going down the debt of the underdeveloped
countries keeps going up. Mick Brooks looks at why this is happening. |
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By Rob Lyon
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Monday, 14 February 2005 |
Since the tsunami disaster in South Asia in December of last year, the
bourgeois media have paid a lot of attention to the misery and poverty
of the Third World. Many people, including British Chancellor of the
Exchequer Gordon Brown, have called for the cancellation of Third
World debt. Will this actually be done, and if so, what would it really achieve?
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By Erik Demeester
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Monday, 17 January 2005 |
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A lot of money was spontaneously donated by millions of people to help
the victims of the tsunami in the Indian Ocean. The governments were
then embarrassed into promising further millions. But will this money
reach its destination? And will the governments come up with the
promised funds? Originally written in Dutch and for a Belgian public,
this article by Erik Demeester gives some revealing statistics about
what is really happening and unveils the hypocrisy of the mass media
campaign. |
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By Rob Lyon
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Wednesday, 05 January 2005 |
 Ten days after the devastating tsunami that wreaked havoc in the Indian Ocean on December 26, 2004 it is becoming increasingly clear that much more could have been done to avert the massive destruction and the death of 146,000 people (so far) in the region. It is also clear that a lot more could be done to assist in aid and relief after the disaster. |
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By Maarten Vanheuverswyn
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Friday, 10 December 2004 |
 UNICEF
has just released its annual report that showed that at least one
billion children, half of the world's children, suffer from poverty,
war and the Aids epidemic. This figure is in itself a shocking
condemnation of the kind of system we live in. The system needs to be
overthrown. |
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By Ray Smith
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Thursday, 25 November 2004 |
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In her usual style Naomi Klein provided many interesting facts, but
failed to reach any concrete conclusions of how we can or whether it is
actually necessary to abolish capitalism. In essence she would like
another kind of capitalism, a more humane capitalism, which of course
is utterly utopian. |
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By Ray Smith
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Tuesday, 19 October 2004 |
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On October 17, between 70,000 and 100,000 marched through Central
London behind a banner with slogans against the imperialist war in
Iraq, racism and privatisation. |
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By In Defence of Marxism
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Tuesday, 19 October 2004 |
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In Defence of Marxism, the French comrades of La Riposte, Hands Off
Venezuela and the Sindicato Estudiantes had stalls at the ESF 2004.
Here are some pictures. |
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By In Defence of Marxism
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Monday, 18 October 2004 |
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Yesterday, October 17, In Defence of Marxism and the
Hands Off Venezuela campaign organised a meeting on Venezuela and the
Bolivarian revolution at the European Social Forum in London. The room
was packed with young people and trade unionists from all over the
world. |
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By In Defence of Marxism
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Monday, 18 October 2004 |
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In addition to the meeting on Sunday, Hands Off Venezuela also
organised a meeting on Saturday on the the trade union situation in
Venezuela and Colombia. See also the Spanish version. |
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By In Defence of Marxism
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Monday, 18 October 2004 |
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Hear Jeremy Dear, General Secreatry of the National Union of
Journalists, and Gonzalo Gomez, editor of the Venezuelan Revolutionary
website Aporrea.org, speaking at the ESF. |
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By In Defence of Marxism
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Thursday, 07 October 2004 |
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This year’s European Social Forum is taking place from 15-17 October in London. The same as last year, In Defence of Marxism
will be there putting the socialist case. This we will do by having
several stalls with Marxist publications and books. However, we are
also participating in the debates themselves. |
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By Luca Lombardi
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Wednesday, 12 May 2004 |
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What is the essence of the ILO (International Labour Organisation)? Some in
the labour movement have the illusion that it can be a genuine force for
defending workers' rights. Luca Lombardi analyses a recent ILO document, A
Fair Globalization: Creating opportunities for all, and shows that in
reality the ILO makes a lot of statements about ethics, morality, "fair
development", etc., but in reality it is an instrument in the hands of the
bosses. |
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By Roberto Sarti
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Tuesday, 18 November 2003 |
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On November 12-16 the second European Social Forum was held in Paris.The attendance did not reach the numbers of the first ESF in Florence, nonetheless around 35-40,000 people registered during the three days of meetings and workshops and around 100,000 took part in the demonstration on Saturday 15th against the war and the occupation of Iraq and against the cuts in the welfare state and to living standards all over Europe. |
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By Mick Brooks
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Monday, 22 September 2003 |
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Last September 14, world trade talks broke down in Cancun, Mexico. Everybody
blamed everyone else. Before the conference, British delegate Patricia Hewitt
had predicted, "if we fail, it will be a disaster for world economy." And this
is true, for the collapse could stun the already fragile prospects of economy
recovery. |
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By Luis Enrique Barrios (Militante, Mexico)
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Friday, 19 September 2003 |
Instead of further integrating the world's economies, the World Trade
Organisation (WTO) summit in Cancun actually succeeded in
creating more polarisation and deeper divisions between its members. The viability of the
WTO, which since Seattle
(December 1999) has gone from failure to failure, is more than ever in doubt. Luis Enrique Barrios,
from the Mexican Marxist paper Militante
analyses the breakdown of talks and future prospects.
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By David Mitchell, PCS Representative Home Office Group (Personal Capacity)
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Wednesday, 09 July 2003 |
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The 1990's has seen a huge increase in poverty around the globe. The gap
between the rich and the poor is getting wider, and if current trends continue
then it will be the year 2147 before areas such as Sub-Saharan Africa can hope
to halve the number of people in poverty. |
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By Aggelos Irakleidis in Athens
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Friday, 27 June 2003 |
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The EU summit that was recently organized in Thessalonica from June 19 to 21
was met with tens of thousands of Greek workers and youth showing their
opposition to the this international club of capitalists gangsters. The European
"leaders" were discussing the new EU Constitution and the problems of illegal
immigration. |
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By Roberto Sarti
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Thursday, 06 February 2003 |
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The recent third World Social Forum (WSF) in Porto Alegre (Brazil) was held
in a period in which great changes are taking place in the world situation. This
was reflected in the huge number of visitors to the WSF. For the first time
there were more than 100,000, which is a clear sign of the changing mood across
the whole of Latin America. |
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By Michael Styrk and Andreas Bulow
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Tuesday, 17 December 2002 |
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While the leaders of the European Union were meeting, thousands of people also turned up
for three anti-EU demonstrations. Michael Styrk and Andreas Bulow in Denmark describe what
happened. |
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By Marie Frederiksen in Copenhagen
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Monday, 16 December 2002 |
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On December13-15 the European Union summit was held in Copenhagen. On the
agenda was the enlargement of the EU to the East and Turkey’s
application for membership. Marie Frederiksen in Copenhagen looks at the contradictions
that will emerge from the enlargement of the EU. On the basis of the developing crisis
of world capitalism the future for a more integrated Europe looks bleak. |
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By Roberto Sarti
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Monday, 11 November 2002 |
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The 50,000 people taking part in the European Social Forum last week in Florence
were far more than the organisers had expected. The last day, Saturday, saw one
million people marching in Florence against the war in Iraq and the Berlusconi
government. There was a thirst for revolutionary ideas among the youth who were
present, not seen since the 1970s. By Roberto Sarti, of the Italian Marxist
paper
FalceMartello. |
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By Jordi Martorell
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Tuesday, 15 October 2002 |
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This is the transcript of a speech given by Jordi Martorell at the Rand
Afrikaans University in South Africa on October 10, 2002. It sums up our
understanding of the struggle against capitalism today and also provides many
useful links to our articles on globalisation and the workers' movement
internationally. |
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By the Der Funke Editorial Board
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Tuesday, 17 September 2002 |
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This is a report of the demonstration in Salzburg against the World Economic Forum from Der Funke.
The international "anti-globalisation movement" has reached an entirely new stage after the mass protests
against the G8 in Genoa and after the second World Social Forum in Porto Alegre. This attempt
to structure the movement into so-called Social Forums has been accompanied by the increasing political
influence of openly reformist forces. |
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By Mick Brooks
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Thursday, 12 September 2002 |
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Mick Brooks reports on the Earth Summit in Johannesburg, where representatives
of governments, big business and NGOs met to discuss the laudable aims of
eradicating poverty and environmental destruction.
The fundamental flaw behind the Summit is that it relies on market forces to
deal with the problems of poverty and the environment.
But market forces are not the solution - they are the problem. |
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By Rui Faustino
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Friday, 26 July 2002 |
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This is a letter we have received from Portugal regarding the Spanish authorities turning back
buses of Portuguese demonstrators bound for the anti-EU summit demonstration Seville, in violation of international treaties,
and the Spanish Civil Guard beating up two members of the Portuguese parliament! |
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By Julio Cruz, from the Spanish Marxist paper El Militante
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Wednesday, 26 June 2002 |
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This is a report of the massive demonstration in Seville to protest
against the
European Union summit. The very militant mood of the demonstrations
reflected the anger of the youth against the policies of the right wing
in Spain and internationally. Despite the propaganda campaign of the
government, which was aimed at scaring people off and turning them
against
the anti-capitalist mobilisations, the balconies were full of people
shouting words of encouragement and saluting
with their raised fists. By Julio Cruz, from the Spanish Marxist paper El Militante. |
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By Bruce Boon
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Wednesday, 19 June 2002 |
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Bruce Boon looks at the darker side of the World Cup: the working conditions of the workers, including child and forced labourers, who make footballs and other merchandise for FIFA and the multinational sponsors of the tournament. He also looks at the sham codes of conduct that these companies draw up with the help of NGOs to show that their workers are actually treated well. |
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By John Peterson
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Thursday, 25 April 2002 |
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The anti-war mobilizations in Washington DC, San Francisco, and elsewhere were the first mass protests against government policy since September 11. Many groups were represented, but all of them had one thing in common - opposition to the so-called War on Terrorism. The anti-globalization, anti-war, and labor movements need to unite under a working-class leadership to fight for a socialist solution to the problems facing working people in the US and internationally.
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By Scott Plant
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Wednesday, 17 April 2002 |
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The "Battle in Seattle" announced to the world that even in the "belly of the beast",
there is outright opposition to the policies of imperialism. Around the world, subsequent
meetings of the IMF, World Bank, G8, and NATO have been met with a rising tide of
militant protest and increasingly ruthless repression by the ruling class. But the attacks
of September 11 cast a shadow over the movement in the US - anyone voicing opposition to
the policies of imperialism was considered unpatriotic and even a terrorist - "you're
either with us or against us!" Now, on April 20, the first major protest event against
the "war on terror" is being held in Washington, DC. The WIL and YFIS will
be there. Download and print our A20 flyer and meet us in DC! |
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Since the Seattle
demonstration a worldwide anti-capitalist movement has developed. Every time
one of the big international capitalist institutions (IMF, WB, WTO, etc.) meets
they are met with the protests of workers and youth from different parts of the
world. In this section we aim to provide an analysis of world capitalism, how it
works and where it is going. We also aim to offer reports on the various
protests taking place.
