Blogs

There is an ever-growing stream of media commentary on the Grenfell fire, increasing daily as the public enquiry unfolds. There are some elements in the media with the goal of obscuring or excusing the plain facts as part of a pre-emptive defence manoeuvre to protect those most implicated in what caused the fire and the 72 deaths. That they feel the need to use such distortions to defend the Grenfell landlords and those who ordered and oversaw the Grenfell refurbishment that fitted the lethal cladding only increases the suggestion of a general doubt on all sides about their innocence.

Comrade Motopu provides an overview of Phil Neel’s book and attempts to place it in the ongoing debates over the centrality of labor movements vs. surplus populations and riots vs. strikes.

On the Caribbean Island of Curacao refinery workers strike against the closure of their enterprise under influence of the economic, political and human tragedy in Venezuela and the danger of inter-imperialist war.

ACTU Secretary Sally McManus recently published a book entitled On Fairness. In the episode of Living The Dream we look at how the argument McManus makes points us in the wrong direction. From The Word From Struggle Street

War or no war, one thing is certain, and that is the bourgeoisie — Chavista or oppositionist — cannot take society anywhere. There is no viable solution based on the nation and certainly not a capitalist one.

outlining the difference and common causes of Anarcho-syndicalism and Anarchist Communism

Tearing down a stupid Fox News article

Recent political events in Venezuela have once again brought to the fore its devastating economic situation. The struggle for power between Maduro and Guaidò, or between a fraudulently re-elected president and an opposition candidate who has proclaimed himself president, besides giving Venezuela a grotesque image, hides the real scenario of an economic and political human tragedy.

The life of Francesc Sabaté Llopart, aka ‘El Quico’, reads like the story of an anarchist action film: participating in the Spanish Civil War, the anti-Nazi resistance in France and armed struggle against Franco, Sabaté carried out assassinations of fascists, illegal border crossings across the Pyrenees and armed robberies to fund the resistance.

The article below has been provided by a CWO sympathiser. It gives a brief sketch of a continuing struggle where we again see workers organising themselves against their bosses and against the bosses' props, the Labor Unions. At this point the outcome of the struggle is not yet determined but even now it is clear that the struggle is part of our class's resistance against the capitalists' crisis-driven onslaught.

It is because the AWL appears to attract a number of genuine young militants who are seeking change that we have decided to examine here their politics and activity.

Neither Maduro nor Guaidó have anything to offer the working-class in the face of this turmoil.

We present an article from the Internationalist Communists Oceania (internationalist-communists-oceania.netlify.com), a new Left Communist regroupment effort in the Oceania region.

An interview about the recent Imagining Abolition conference and the politics of prison abolition.
From The Word From Struggle Street

Two pieces of news from Mexico currently appear in the press around the world: a new historical record in the number of homicides and the explosion of a Pemex pipeline in Tlahuelilpan, which has left almost a hundred corpses already. Everything in Mexico leads us to despair. But there is something important going on that the international media is not broadcasting.

The world economy is in poor shape and the American economy is in even worse condition. The 2008 crisis has not been resolved and many analysts fear a new financial explosion. Capital continues to stay clear of investment in production and is trying to recover without running up more debts. Company returns are low, profit rates are decreasing. Capital is moving more and more into speculation. It is the same old situation, except that the rescue costs of the previous crisis cannot be repeated in the next crisis. The sound of war can be heard in the distance, accompanied by the rising threat of a new, catastrophic barbarism.

A growing gulf between the ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’ is in itself only a symptom of the disease. The real problem is that capitalism in crisis has nothing left to offer but increasing misery for the mass of the population. And 2019 will be no different.

At the time of writing – early January 2019 – it is difficult to say whether the movement of the gilets jaunes has entered a phase of reflux before it dies down or if it is going through a pause after more than a month of intense activity and severe clashes with the state.