July 14, 2011 -- Socialist Resistance -- On Sunday, July 10, 2011, that bastion of scandal-mongering populist reaction in Britain, the News of the World (NOTW), departed this earth writes Piers Mostyn.

It was Britains’s biggest selling Sunday paper and the paper that achieved the highest ever sales in the world. Two days later, after what a Guardian columnist described as “an uprising of MPs”, the Murdoch empire dropped its bid to take over BSkyB. It was a humiliating retreat for the world’s biggest media mogul.

July 15, 2011 -- Rosa Luxemburg was a revolutionary icon, a pathbreaking Marxist theorist and, according to the editors of Verso's new volume of her correspondence, a "fanatical" letter writer. Essayist, memoirist and critic Vivian Gornick, author of The Men in My Life and Fierce Attachments, who also reviewed the new voluime for the US Nation, and Paul Le Blanc, professor of history at La Roche University and editor of Rosa Luxemburg: Reflections and Writings discuss -- and debate -- what Luxemburg's letters can tell us about women and communism at the dawn of the Soviet era.

The discussion is hosted by Marissa Brostoff from the Beyond the Pale radio program. It was broadcast on June 12, 2011.

Munyaradzi Gwisai.

By the National Coordinating Committee, International Socialist Organisation Zimbabwe

July 7, 2011 -- The International Socialist Organisation Zimbabwe (ISOZ) wishes to update all progressive cadres, socialists, revolutionaries and democrats who have been in solidarity with us since the unjust February 19, 2011, arrest, detention and torture of ISO comrades, student leaders and human rights activists that the case of "State v Munyaradzi Gwisai and 6 Others "goes to court on July 18, 2011.The trial will take place at the Rotten Row magistrates Regional Court 18 in Harare, Zimbabwe at 08:30hrs.

[For more information on the case, click here for previous articles.]

Our National Coordinating Committee comrades Munyaradzi Gwisai, Tafadzwa Choto and Tatenda Mombeyarara will be standing trial together with trade unionist Edison Chakuma, debt rights activist and ex-ISO comrade Hopewell Gumbo and student leader Welcome Zimuto.

Candlelight vigils (also see pics below) are being held outside the federal police HQ at Bukit Aman, Kuala Lumpur.

By Peter Boyle, national convenor Socialist Alliance (Australia)

By Felipe Stuart Cournoyer and John Riddell

July 11, 2011 -- johnriddell.wordpress.com, posted at Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal with permission -- A national assembly of the resistance, uniting more than 1500 delegates from across Honduras, voted on June 26 to launch a new political party, the Frente Amplio de Resistencia Popular (Broad Front of Popular Resistance, FARP).

The assembly was convened by the Frente Nacional de Resistencia Popular (National People’s Resistance Front, FNRP), the main coordinating body of popular struggle since a right-wing coup overthrew the democratically elected government of President Manuel Zelaya two years ago, on June 28, 2009.

The new party is to function as an arm of the Resistance Front in the political-electoral arena and will contest the 2013 presidential elections.

By Rupen Savoulian

July 8, 2011 -- Antipodean Athiest, posted at Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal with permission -- In the lead-up to the March 2003 US invasion of Iraq, the pop group the Dixie Chicks played a concert at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire theatre in London. One of the group’s members, Natalie Maines, a native of Texas, made a critical comment about a fellow Texan, George W. Bush who was then president of the United States. She said that “Just so you know, we’re on the good side with y’all. We do not want this war, this violence, and we’re ashamed that the president of the United States is from Texas.” A seemingly innocuous comment, you would think?

By Martin Hart-Landsberg

July 7, 2011 -- Reports from the Economic Front, posted at Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal with the author's permission -- The charts above deserve a long careful look. According to the US National Bureau of Economic Research, the Great Recession ended in the United States in June 2009. Not many working people are celebrating the expansion’s second anniversary.

As Paul Wiseman, an Associated Press economics writer, notes:  

[This economic] recovery has been the weakest and most lopsided of any since the 1930s. After previous recessions, people in all income groups tended to benefit. This time, ordinary Americans are struggling with job insecurity, too much debt and pay raises that haven’t kept up with prices at the grocery store and gas station. The economy’s meager gains are going mostly to the wealthiest.

By the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation (Germany)

July 9, 2011 -- It’s that time again! Greece needs more loans and governments in Europe are arguing about whether it’s really necessary and who should foot the bill. There is widespread opinion in Germany that Greece itself is to blame for the problems it now finds itself in. It is claimed that first of all cheated its way into the eurozone, then the government spent too much and the governed worked too little, many believe.

Latently nationalistic interpretations of this kind have been nourished by German politicians and the media, who have no end of proposals for how to "solve" the crisis. For example, the Greeks should save more, work more and sell their public property – and if all of these measures do not help, then Greece will just have to leave the eurozone or declare itself bankrupt.

The stupid thing is, neither are the causes of the crisis that have been named are correct, nor will the proposed ways out of the crisis achieve their goal.

[For more articles on Trotsky at Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal, click HERE.]

By Scott McLemee

July 8, 2011 -- Inside Higher Ed, posted at Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal with the author's permission -- Every so often, one scholar will assess another’s book so harshly that it becomes legendary. The most durable example must be A.E. Housman, whose anti-blurbs retain their sting after a century and more. Housman is best-known for the verse in his collection A Shropeshire Lad (1896). But classicists still remember his often pointed reviews of other philologists’ editions of ancient poetry, and can sometimes quote snippets from memory.

Statement by Bersih 2.0 organisers: Malaysians show great bravery, the struggle for clean and fair elections continues

July 9, 2011 -- Bersih 2.0 -- Bersih 2.0 is proud that in spite of all the obstacles and hindrances that we were forced to face, Malaysians of all walks of life overcame the oppressive acts of the police to come out peacefully and in incredibly large numbers to show their love for their country and for the principles of justice.

We are nonetheless horrified that several hundred people have been detained, many of them without any justification whatsoever. We particularly condemn the arrests of Dato’ Ambiga Sreenevesan and Maria Chin Abdullah, two members of the Bersih 2.0 Steering Committee.

The only violence witnessed was perpetrated by the police, who unleashed immense amounts of tear gas and chemical laced water on innocent members of the public. Police also baton charged those who gathered, injuring many and some very seriously.

Message to my readers and friends

By Esteban Morales. Translation by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews

July 7, 2011 -- This is to let you know that last week I was summoned by the Appeals Commission of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba to a meeting in which I was informed of their decision to nullify the separation order from the party given last year by the Playa Municipality Committee and to return my card and full membership.

I'd like to seize the opportunity to state how grateful I am for all the support I have received in the last few months from friends, intellectual colleagues and people I've never met who got in touch with me through different ways, made statements about this issue, or simply stopped me in the street for an update on my situation.

I also want to thank my family for their support in these difficult and yet extremely enlightening days. I will keep on working as hard as I have on the topics I have been writing about in my blog. I'm looking forward to your attention.

Socialist MP Dr Jeyakumar Devaraj. Photo by Peter Boyle.

By Peter Boyle

July 9, 2011 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal/Green Left Weekly -- Dr Jeyakumar Deveraj, a federal member of parliament in Malaysia, is one of 30 activists of the Socialist Party of Malaysia (PSM) detained without trial on June 25 as they travelled the country campaigning against the repressive and corrupt Barisan Nasional government headed by Najib Razak.

The detention of these socialists was designed to intimidate people from supporting a broad mass rally for free and fair elections that called for July 9 by civil society groups united in the Coalition for Free and Fair Elections (Bersih, which means “clean”).

"If ecosocialists support wilderness clearances and population reduction they will be on the wrong side of some of the most important struggles in the world today." -- Ian Angus

[Ian Angus will be a feature speaker at the World at a Crossroads II: Climate change: social change conference, in Melbourne, Australia, September 30-October 3, 2011.]

July 4, 2011 -- The following is Climate and Capitalism editor Ian Angus’s response to "Saral Sarkar on Malthusianism and Ecosocialism" and Sarkar’s "Reply to some points made by my critics and sympathizers". It is part of a continuing discussion taking place on Climate and Capitalism (see the links at the end of the article).

* * *

Dear Saral Sarkar,

By Paul Le Blanc

This presentation was given at the Chicago educational conference of the US International Socialist Organization, Socialism 2011, on the July 2-3, 2011, weekend. The text first appeared at Europe Solidaire Sans Frontières.

* * *

May Day 2011, Kathmandu.

This statement emerges from within the Kasama Project — in internationalist communist solidarity with the revolutionary movement of Nepal’s people. Kasama submitted it to Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal for publication.

By Eric Ribellarsi and Mike Ely*

June 30, 2011 -- For more than 20 years, the impoverished and isolated peoples in the southern Himalayan foothills have risen up to remake themselves and their world. Now, after the sacrifices of a whole generation, the future of their movement and society hangs in the balance.

Will the revolutionary sections of the people be able to carry through the struggle to create the radically new Nepal they have dreamed of? Or will the accomplishments of their struggle so far be consolidated into something that falls short of liberation?

Two roads sharply posed

Different futures confront each other. Those opposing roads have become concentrated in a very stark set of opposing choices.

Thailand's new prime minister, Yingluck Shinawatra.

"This election is only one step towards restoring democracy. It will take mass participation of the Red Shirts in order to strengthen and speed up the process."

[For more on Thailand and the Red Shirt movement, click HERE.]

By Giles Ji Ungpakorn

July 4, 2011 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- The results of Thailand's July 3 general election are a slap in the face for the dictatorship. They prove without any doubt that the majority of people have rejected the military, the Democrat Party and the royalist elites. Pheu Thai, the party closely allied to the Red Shirt movement, has won a clear majority. The result is all the more remarkable, given that the election was held under conditions of severe censorship and intimidation of the Red Shirt democracy movement by the military and the military-installed Democrat Party government of Abhisit Vejjajiva.

Thulisile Christina Manqele.

By Patrick Bond

July 3, 2011 – Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- Two of South Africa’s greatest water warriors were not actually killed in conflict, though at the time of their deaths on June 22 and 23, both were furious with their traditional political party home, the ruling African National Congress (ANC).

For former ANC cabinet minister Kader Asmal (whom Nelson Mandela once proposed be ANC chairperson), the party’s proposed legislation to snuff state information, nicknamed the “Secrecy Bill”, warranted spirited condemnation, and the airwaves rang with his principled liberal critique up through his last week. The day after he died (age 76), the ANC authorised sufficient revision to the bill that he probably would have declared victory. His funeral and memorial were given exceptionally high-profile coverage in the state press, befitting his status as a senior human rights lawyer and party intellectual.