Not the death of the Good Friday agreement – the death of its daughter by John McAnulty (Socialist Democracy, Belfast) The chief theory behind the latest slapstick collapse of what is still called the Irish Peace Process, despite being sponsored by Bush and Blair, the butchers of Fallujah, is what is best called the ‘if…
Iraq: a rigged election under occupation does not equal democracy
No wonder Bush and Blair believe in God! As their imperialist venture into Iraq descends further into chaos, blood and madness, the criminal folly of this illegal and ruthless occupation was pushed off the pages of our newspapers and from our TV screens by an ‘act of God’: the Tsunami. The paltry aid from the…
Diego Garcia
Britannia waives the rules Uncle Sam rules the waves Diego Garcia is an island in the Chagos Archipelago, lying in the Indian Ocean. It has been inhabited by a Creole people since the eighteenth century, when it became a British colony. In 1966, the island’s 2000 inhabitants were forcibly removed by Harold Wilson’s Labour government…
Tsunami and the tourist industry
The US media admit that Secretary of State Colin Powell’s visit to Thailand is designed to prop up the hard-hit tourist industry there. The catastrophic Dec. 26 tsunami hit the beaches of Sri Lanka and Thailand and the islands of the Maldives at the height of tourist season. While the tourist industry brings a lot…
Tsunami solidarity donations
(Source: CPGB website) Please note that we cannot take responsbility for the work of any of these organisations. Trade unions The Indonesian forestry workers union has put out an urgent appeal for funds for Aceh and North Sumatra. Money donated will go directly to the union in one of the worst-affected areas. Donations can be…
Tsunami: an act of nature and the laws of capitalism
Nick Clarke looks at the global reaction to the tsunami and how capitalism is responsible for the human consequences. The devastating tsunami that smashed through the coastal areas of countries that ring the Indian Ocean on December 26th exposed the contradictions and contrasts that exist across the globe in the 21st Century. This ‘act of…
Upholding socialist principles
Scottish Socialist Party members cannot have failed to be affected and concerned by the events surrounding Tommy Sheridan’s resignation as the party’s convenor, the subsequent speculation and ‘analysis’ in the media and the handling of the events by the SSP Executive Committee. During the internal discussions the question of what socialist principles should be guiding…
Suffering is no substitute for programme
D. Rayner O’Connor Lysaght, (Socialist Democracy, Dublin) argues that although the Jacobite Rising drew on social discontents it was incapable of resolving them postively. Reading Dave Douglass’ passionate defence of the Jacobite Rising of ‘45, it became clear how much more relevant it is today than he seems to realise. In the Middle East, hundreds…
‘Unionism’, Progress and the Socialist Tradition in Scottish History
Neil Davidson, author of Discovering the Scottish Revolution, replies to some of the discussion and debate his book has provoked. I have been invited by the editors of Emancipation And Liberation to participate in the discussion about Discovering The Scottish Revolution here and in the pages of Scottish Socialist Voice and Frontline[1]Joe Hartney, Scots Far…
Emancipatory Science
Despite its misuse and abuse by capitalism, Iain Robertson illustrates how science and scientists have a progressive role to play. As debates continue about GM crops, global warming and environmental degradation, scientists can easily become regarded as a faceless group in the pay of the industrial/military machine that increasingly blights our lives across the globe.…