Migrant workers from Ethiopia at a camp in western Yemen, on the border with Saudi Arabia. The Saudis have deported thousands of migrant workers over the past few months. May 21, 2013. Khaled Abdullah.
This is inhumane
(via libyanforsyria)
(Source: co2cloud, via libyanforsyria)
SMUGGLING KFC INTO GAZA
“The French fries arrive soggy, the chicken having long since lost its crunch. A 12-piece bucket goes for about $27 here — more than twice the $11.50 it costs just across the border in Egypt….it took more than four hours for the KFC meals to arrive here on a recent afternoon from the franchise where they were cooked in El Arish, Egypt, a journey that involved two taxis, an international border, a smuggling tunnel and a young entrepreneur coordinating it all from a small shop here called Yamama — Arabic for pigeon.”
-New York Times, “Delivering KFC by Tunnel, Not Too Fast but Satisfying”
(via gogizz)
What is Socialism? - Frequently Asked Questions
The bloody events at the G8 summit in Genoa 2001 mark a turning point in the anti-capitalist movement. Leaders of the world’s eight richest nations slept in a luxury liner and junketed on five star cuisine. They were behind a 13-feet steel barricade, topped with barbed wire.
Meanwhile outside the six square mile exclusion zone, police shot dead young protester Carlo Giuliani, and brutally attacked and injured hundreds more. After Genoa, the G8 will hold their next summit in a remote resort in Canada’s Rocky Mountains. In November the World Trade Organisation (WTO), focus of previous protests, will meet in Qatar in the Middle East.
Anti-capitalist protests
But, the representatives of global capitalism insist, they are “not running away from the anti-capitalist protests”. Most people will think differently. However far they flee, however brutal the repression meted out against peaceful protesters, anti-capitalism won’t fade away. The siege mentality of big business’s spokesmen reinforces a growing sense of alienation - amongst young people in particular - from capitalism and its institutions. When Carlo Giuliani was shot, Tony Blair rejected calls for the summit to be suspended, arguing that the politicians should carry on with their “democratic” business. But it is precisely because he and the rest preside over an undemocratic system based on inequality, injustice, environmental destruction, debt and poverty, that the anti-capitalist movement keeps growing. In the last year, three million people have protested in 20 countries world-wide. Millions more sympathise with their aims. In an opinion poll in Britain 67% thought big corporations have more power than governments. 76% thought they put profit before people. Black and Asian youth in areas such as Brixton and Bradford are beginning to link the brutality and racism which they face daily at the police’s hands and the vicious attacks on anti-capitalist protesters in Genoa and elsewhere. Where is the movement headed?
Workers fighting privatisation in education and other public services are drawing the conclusion that they too are ‘“anti-capitalist”. After Genoa many will want to consider where the movement is headed. At least 700 separate organisations were involved in the protests, voicing their anger and concerns on the streets. From the beginning, the anti-capitalist movement embraced many varied groups and ideas. Differences over strategy and tactics were already emerging before Genoa. The media focused on groups such as Drop the Debt and Oxfam which refused to participate in the Saturday demonstration of 300,000 because they feared it would be “hijacked” by “violent anarchists”. But the main divisions aren’t between those who support and those who reject violence. Most protesters, while condemning police and state violence, understand that smashing up shops and property and individual acts of violence by demonstrators, don’t take the movement forward and can give politicians an opportunity to increase state repression.
Better organised
Other debates are more significant. While spokespeople for the anti-capitalist movement such as journalist Naomi Klein praise its spontaneity, many involved in the protests are deciding that they need to be better organised. While other ‘leaders’ argue naively for a more ‘humane’ form of capitalism and for reforming institutions like the IMF and World Bank, radical young people and increasingly sections of workers, look towards a more fundamental change. Direct action and anti-capitalist protests outside the institutions of global capitalism raised millions of people’s awareness of capitalism’s iniquities and placed the spotlight firmly on the system as a whole. But by themselves, these protests cannot end capitalism. Even if its representatives are forced to the far ends of the earth, they will still meet and control our lives.
Ending capitalism
Ending capitalism requires mass movements involving radicalised young people, the urban and rural poor in ‘developing’ countries but with workers playing the central role. Two general strikes in Greece this year in protest at changes to the social security system brought the country to a halt. These showed why workers are not just one ‘pressure group’ amongst many but the decisive force with the potential, collective power to change society.
SocialismWith a world recession looming, the anti-capitalist protests are a foretaste of much bigger struggles to come. We will strive to link the anti-capitalist with the workers’ movement. But being anti-capitalist is not enough. We have to be clear what we’re fighting for. Socialism is about taking control away from the multinational corporations and rich elite and democratically and sustainably planning production for need not profit. The struggle for socialism is the only way forward.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s Interview with Clarin (Argentina) - English subtitles
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad speaks to Argentinian newspaper Clarin about the ongoing war in Syria. The president says the country’s crisis has become so deadly because of international interference.
It’s the same story over and over and over again
Let’s explain what socialism is before we call ourselves socialist
May 21, 2013Last year I went to a gig in Sheffield with two artists performing who I think represent the two paths Left Unity can go down. Headlining was Billy Bragg who’s been barking earnestly away for 30 years whilst society’s gone down the drain despite his best efforts. The other band was the King Blues, younger, angrier and more exciting. What I like about the King Blues, and what Left Unity can learn from them, is the way they relate politics to everyday life. Instead of talking about Patriarchy, they simply ask why it is that some women feel the need to buy 5 different bottles of shampoo? It’s a very good question but their most relevant lyric comes in a song called “what if punk never happened”. In it, they imagine the path towards a dystopian future and one of the reasons this happens is, in their words, that “the protests were full of throwbacks calling each other comrade, of course the young folks attendance started to fade”. This makes the point that, to engage the young and uninitiated, our language and terms of reference need to be accessible. In this spirit I propose a list of words that we should be wary of:
Comrade
It’s a lovely concept. A gender-neutral pronoun which shows we’re all on the same side but what images does the word bring up? Stalin, Lenin and Marx sitting in a room congratulating each other. More importantly, it’s not a word used in everyday life so we need to drop it.Working Class
In a meeting in Haringey somebody expressed concern about the continued talk of the working class. “What about teachers?” he said, they’re middle class and are getting screwed over as much as the rest of us. You might say that teachers are working class and I’d agree with you. As a Marxist, I consider everyone who works for a living, or has to rely on the welfare state, working class. However that’s not what the phrase mean in ordinary speech. Class has come to depend on all sorts of arbitrary consumer choices. Like humous? You’re middle class. Like sugar in your tea? You’re working class. Don’t like either? You’re upper class. This definition isn’t wrong, it’s just different. It’s designed for pollsters, sociologists and advertisers not for people like us who are interested in the division of political power. My definition of working class is much closer to the Occupy concept of the 99% but that’s also a loaded term so instead let’s use the phrase “working people”. It’s the same as the Marxist definition of “working class” but with less connotations attached to it. We need to make it clear that you can eat as much humous as you like, as long as you don’t own a large a chain of businesses then you’re the right class for Left Unity.Reformist/ Revolutionary
What is a revolution if it’s not a series of radical reforms? For me, this whole distinction is a way for “revolutionaries” to smear “reformists” by which they mean anyone who doesn’t already identify themselves with an explicitly revolutionary ideology like that of “Trotskyism”, “Leninism” or “Anarchism”. This definition of revolutionary excludes the vast majority of actual revolutionaries. The Egyptians, Venezuelans and Cubans are all out as is Alexis Tsipiras and his Greek Syriza party. All these groups were inspired, not by the ideas of dead Russians, but by the desire to radically change (reform) their material conditions.Trotskyist/Leninist/Bolshevik
This isn’t an attack on those ideologies themselves but what do people think of when they hear them? I know my friends think back to dimly-recalled GCSE Russian history lessons. Older people probably think of the Soviet Union they grew up hearing horror stories about. OK, so maybe people have got the wrong impression. Maybe we need to re-educate them and recover the good name of these glorious leaders but it’s not going to happen. Are we a Russian history discussion club or a political party? Do we want to debate the legacy of Lenin or transform modern Britain?Socialist
Socialism means different things to different people. Ed Miliband, Ken Loach and Stalin have all said they’re socialists. Two of them are lying. Which one depends on your personal definition of Socialism. At a Left Unity meeting we had a debate about the word socialist. It was said that we have to be honest with people but if I tell a stranger I’m a socialist, and they think that socialism is the same as supporting the Soviet Union, am I really being honest with them? One time I was chatting pleasantly away with a Czech woman in a café in Sheffield, I mentioned that I was a socialist and she stormed away saying the socialists had killed her grandparents. A friend of mine, knowing that I’m a socialist, said I should write a blog, sincerely adding “they’ll love it in China and Russia”. You only get one chance to make a first impression. Let’s explain what socialism is before we call ourselves socialist.Capitalist/Anti-Capitalist
I’ve heard people at meetings endlessly saying things like “I don’t want to be part of a party that tries to reform Capitalism”, “Capitalism’s rotten to the core, we need to get rid of Capitalism”. What I’ve never heard is someone explain what Capitalism is and what getting rid of it would look like. For me, Capitalism is where businesses aren’t owned by their workers which is a ridiculous and undemocratic arrangement. Does this make me an anti-capitalist? I would say it does, many would say it doesn’t. If we can’t define what Capitalism is then how can we decide what’s the point of even talking about whether we’re an anti-capitalist party, still less falling out over it. Furthermore, the vast majority of British people don’t define themselves as anti-capitalist and so any leaflet from an “anti-capitalist” party will go straight in the bin. A party that says they want workers to control their workplaces on the other hand, re-build the welfare state and re-nationalize the railways and utilities on the other hand sounds good to everyone.I’ve got a couple of points
I’ve found that when people say this at meetings it means they’ve got a speech prepared in which they’ll attempt to spell out what’s wrong with society and how to fix it. This’ll go on forever and will bore people away from Left Unity for good. Keep it as short as possible, people have short attention spans and are impatient for change.Solidarity & left unity always.
Man uses American flag to assault civil rights activist.
1976.
this is like something a political cartoonist would draw as a heavy-handed metaphor for race relations in the US
except it actually happened
(Source: historicporn, via thistechboi)
A Classic Arab tale that detailed the morbid love story of Qays ibn al-Mulawwah of the Banu ‘Amir tribe and his undying love for Layla. Originally said in the Anecdotes of classic Arab folklore, it was popularized by the 12th Persian poet Nizami. It is the base of inspiration for classic Romantic Literature pieces like Romeo and Juliet and many other tales.
” I pass by these walls, the walls of Layla
And I kiss this wall and that wall
It’s not Love of the houses that has taken my heart
But of the One who dwells in those houses ”
(via halakhano)
”
People talk sometimes of a bestial cruelty, but that’s a great injustice and insult to the beasts; a beast can never be so cruel as a man, so artistically cruel. The tiger only tears and gnaws, that’s all he can do. He would never think of nailing people by the ears, even if he were able to do it.
Fyodor Dostoevsky ~ The Brothers Karamazov
Palestine
(Source: 92nada, via thepeacefulterrorist)
CHE GUEVARA IN GAZA, PALESTINE 1959.
(He visited Gaza on June 18, 1959 walking around in Palestinian refugee camps where he was welcomed with chants supporting the Cuban revolution)
(via imhalal)
(via the-arab-wolf)
Years ago Al-Jazeera broadcasted shocking images of the aftermath of an American bombing raid in Iraq. Dozens of bodies, layed out in front of the clinic, 26 members of the Al-Qamiz family died in the bombing.
But when questioned about the civilian casualties, brigadier Mark Kimmitt dismissed the Al-Jazeera report as propaganda.Brainwashing by the US through media. They don’t want you to see the truth.
(via greekin)
