Emancipation & Liberation, Issue 14, Spring 2007 Offering a Socialist vision, RCN Peak Oil, Oil Depletion, & Alternative Energies, Rod MacGregor One year on, Jim Aitken Against Imperialist war, for Iran’s workers, Yassamine Mather No War On Iran!, Hands Off People of Iran Naming women’s oppression, Catriona Grant The Sinn Fein Ard Fheis and the…
The Republic of the Imagination
The Republic of the Imagination In August 2006, Allan Armstrong interviewed the literary critic and poet John Manson about his life and works Could you please give us some background information about your life? I was born on a croft on the coast of the Pentland Firth in 1932. My mother was widowed in 1941.…
Parecon: Participatory Economics and Socialism for the 21st Century
by Neil Bennet What do you want? It’s a question that we, as revolutionary socialists (or communists) face more often than any other when talking about our politics. We are more than happy to tell people what we are against – war, exploitation, suffering, injustice…but more often than not, when it comes to telling people…
To See Oursels as Ithers See Us!
Crisis In The SSP This article on recent events in the SSP is from the Irish Socialist Network. Irish Socialist Network Website The Tommy Sheridan affair probably hasn’t run its course yet: there’s bound to be a few twists and turns left before we can close the book on the whole saga. But it’s possible…
Bought and Sold
Smart big awards and prize money Is killing off black poetry It’s not censors or dictators that are cutting up our art. The lure of meeting royalty And touching high society Is damping creativity and eating at our heart. The ancestors would turn in graves Those poor black folk that once were slaves would wonder…
Me? I Thought, OBE Me? Up Yours, I Thought
An invitation to the palace to accept a New Year honour…you must be joking. Benjamin Zephaniah won’t be going. Here he explains why. We have reprinted this article from The Guardian, Thursday November 27, 2003. I woke up on the morning of November 13 wondering how the government could be overthrown and what could replace…
Bono Finally Finds What He’s Been Looking For – a Knighthood
by JM Thorn This article is reproduced from the Socialist Democracy website I have no embarrassment at all. No shame. Bono, 2006 The quotation above was Irish rock star’s Bono attempt at self deprecating humour. However, being devoid of the humility required to make it work as a joke, it stands more as a statement…
Secularism, Socialism and Religion
Bob Goupillot outlines a Marxist approach to religion A Marxist understanding of religion Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world and the soul of soulless conditions. It is…
Footprints on the Face
by Rod Macgregor On a clear autumn evening I watched the moon rising, It was big, it was bright, in its heavenly place, How clever we are, I thought, we’ve walked on you, And behind us we’ve left footprints on your face. No wind will blow there to ever remove them, No one will build…
The Sinn Fein Ard Fheis and the Collapse of Republicanism
Joe Craig (Socialist Democracy – Belfast) analyses the recent developments in Ireland’s republican movement The vote at the Sinn Fein Ard Fheis to support the police force and judicial system of the Northern State is dramatic evidence of the collapse of republican consciousness. Publication the week beforehand of the ombudsman’s report into police collusion with…