“You’re only killing a man”, revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara said in a school in La Higuera, before he was shot. Forty years later, in that exact spot, among the fog of the Bolivian forest and darkness of night, flags representing social movements from all over Latin America waved in the wind and their bearers danced together until sunrise. That night of October 7 we remembered Che and the struggles of that time, through speeches and song, and we thought about the future as the continent turns red with the idealism, humanism, rejection of neoliberalism, and collective ownership of resources that Che had talked of and fought for.
728
GLW #727 reported that 120 people marched in Cairns in solidarity with Burma on October 3. The protest took place on October 4.
Writing in an Age of Silence
By Sara Paretsky
Verso, 2007
138 pages, $39.95 (hb)
By Sara Paretsky
Verso, 2007
138 pages, $39.95 (hb)
Victorian state sector nurses are being threatened with having their pay docked for at least four hours for each day they participate in industrial action over wages and conditions, which began following a mass meeting of more than 3500 Australian Nursing Federation (ANF) members on October 16.
Despite China’s spectacular GDP growth of nearly 10% per year since 1978 — and despite Beijing’s claim that the country remains on a socialist course — in the eight years to 2005, workers’ wages as a proportion of GDP plunged from 53% to 41.4%.
On October 3 Caribbean Net News reported that the South American nation Guyana, which borders Venezuela to its west, will soon benefit from a US$12.5 million debt write-off by Venezuela under an agreement expected to be finalised in the near future.
Sustainable Living for Dummies
By Michael Grosvenor
Wiley Publishing Australia, 2007
320 pages, $39.95 (pb)
By Michael Grosvenor
Wiley Publishing Australia, 2007
320 pages, $39.95 (pb)
In his frantic bid to secure a fifth consecutive election victory for the Coalition, Prime Minister John Howard has fired up the amp and is loudly proclaiming his message that growth and increased private wealth will solve all problems. Howard is presenting his message — pump-primed by a lavish promise of personal tax cuts (largely for the already wealthy) and proclamations that economic growth can proceed unhindered (in spite of growing environmental concerns and increasing inequality) — like a spruiker at a country sideshow: enjoy the fairy floss and don’t mind the smell of bullshit.
In an opinion piece printed in the October 16 Washington Post, 12 former US Army captains who served in Iraq between 2003 and 2006 argued that the US should either reinstate compulsory military service — “the draft” — or immediately withdraw all its troops from Iraq.
During the upsurge of working-class and liberation struggles that followed the 1917 Russian Revolution, socialists from all continents joined in founding a world party, the Communist International, or “Comintern”.
Some 130,000 post office workers in the Communication Workers Union (CWU) have brought mail deliveries in Britain to a standstill by holding two 48-hour strikes over pay and working conditions. The strikes, which began on October 5 and October 8 respectively, are over management plans to axe 40,000 jobs, to close workers’ final salary pension scheme, to offer a below inflation pay rise, and to tear up all existing national and local agreements on working hours.
Andy Newman, an editor of British blog Socialistunity.com, spoke to Salma Yaqoob for Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly. Yaqoob is the national vice-chair of anti-war coalition Respect — the Unity Coalition, as well as a leader of BirminghamÂ’s Stop the War Coalition and a Birmingham city councillor.
- Previous page
- Page 4
- Next page