[Marxism] What's new at Links: Castro on Obama; Evo Morales on climate; Malaysian socialists; Thailand; Nepal; Zimbabwe; Indonesia; economy

[glparramatta <glparramatta@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

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    Fidel Castro on `Team Obama' <http://links.org.au/node/779>

By *Fidel Castro Ruz *
December 4, 2008 -- Following Barack Obama's speech, on May 23, 2008, to 
the Cuban American National Foundation established by Ronald Reagan, I 
wrote a reflection entitled ``The empire's hypocritical policy''. In 
that reflection I quoted his exact words to the Miami annexationists. I 
then offered several arguments and unethical examples of the general 
behaviour of the presidents who preceded the one who would be elected to 
that position in the November 4 elections.

    * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/779>


    Evo Morales on addressing climate change: `Save the planet from
    capitalism' <http://links.org.au/node/769>

By *Evo Morales Ayma*, President of Bolivia
November 28, 2008 -- Sisters and brothers, today our Mother Earth is 
ill. From the beginning of the 21st century we have lived the hottest 
years of the last thousand years. Global warming is generating abrupt 
changes in the weather: the retreat of glaciers and the decrease of the 
polar ice caps; the increase of the sea level and the flooding of 
coastal areas, where approximately 60% of the world population live; the 
increase in the processes of desertification and the decrease of fresh 
water sources; a higher frequency in natural disasters that the 
communities of the earth suffer[1]; the extinction of animal and plant 
species; and the spread of diseases in areas that before were free from 
those diseases. Everything began with the industrial revolution in 1750, 
which gave birth to the capitalist system. In two and a half centuries, 
the so called "developed" countries have consumed a large part of the 
fossil fuels created over five million centuries.

    * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/769>


    Malaysia: Bicycle protesters for workers' rights defy police
    intimidation <http://links.org.au/node/781>

By *Oppressed People's Movement (Jaring Rakyat Tertindas, Jerit)*
December 6, 2008 -- The Oppressed People's Movement (Jaring Rakyat 
Tertindas, Jerit) is conducting a cycling campaign throughout Malaysia 
to highlight demands for workers' right, which will be presented to the 
prime minister of Malaysia. The campaign officially began on December 3 
at Wisma Darul Aman Kedah, where 50 cyclists were flagged off. They will 
cycle for 16 days through Kedah, Penang, Perak and Selangor. On December 
18, they will hand a memorandum to the prime minister, at the national 
parliament in Kuala Lumpur.

    * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/781>


    Team Obama: Channelling Clinton, extending Bush
    <http://links.org.au/node/778>

By *Patrick Bond*
December 4, 2008 -- Barack Obama was elected on a platform of change. 
Yet, his actions are pointing to more and more of the same. The question 
of whether Obama can possibly replace Bush as a danger to world peace is 
worth considering.

    * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/778>


    Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist): The differences of opinion within
    our party <http://links.org.au/node/777>

By *Netra Bikram Chand 'Biplap'*
We should say honestly that there is a difference of opinion on how to 
accomplish the Nepalese Revolution. Mainly, the difference of opinion is 
about the party line, political program and tactics in our party. This 
clearly justifies that a serious u-turn has occurred before the Nepalese 
Revolution. The responsibility of carrying the revolution ahead 
successfully has fallen upon the shoulders of the revolutionary 
communists of Nepal and the revolutionary communists of the world. We 
all should direct our attention to it.

    * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/777>


    Zimbabwe: First signs of united front mass action against elite
    settlement <http://links.org.au/node/775>

By the *National Co-Ordinating Committee, International Socialist 
Organisation Zimbabwe*
December 2, 2008 -- The situation in Zimbabwe has reached unprecedented 
levels of crisis. As we have been saying for the last few years, such a 
crisis was climaxing and with a number of possibilities arising. First 
and most likely was the likelihood of the bourgeois elite politicians in 
[President Robert Mugabe's] Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic 
Front (ZANU-PF) and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) 
uniting together in an elitist government of national unity in which 
ZANU-PF would be the senior partner around a Western- and 
capitalist-supported neoliberal economic agenda. The MDC's popularity 
would be used to pacify the urban working people from rising up.

    * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/775>


    Indonesia: Activists debate electoral tactic
    <http://links.org.au/node/774>

By *Kelik Ismunanto*
November 29, 2008 -- After such a long period of time in a vacuum, 
uncertain of how to respond to changes caused by neoliberal economic 
policies, little by little, democracy movement activists have been able 
to wrest back the political podium. In the last few months, several 
national television stations provided a political stage for activists 
such as Dita Sari, Budiman Sujatmiko, Pius Lustrilanang and other young 
activists who are contesting the 2009 elections, to explain their 
reasons for choosing the parliamentary tactic.
Among young activists, there are opinions in favour and against this tactic.

    * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/774>


    Malaysia: Detention without trial -- Abolish the Internal Security
    Act 1960! <http://links.org.au/node/773>

By *Enalini Elumalai*, general coordinator Suara Rakyat Malaysia (Suaram)
November 27, 2008 -- While Malaysia celebrated its 51st anniversary of 
/Merdeka/ (independence) from Britain in 2008, the Malaysian government 
continued to arrest and detain individuals without charging them or 
putting them on trial under the Internal Security Act 1960

    * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/773>


    Thailand: A second `coup for the rich' <http://links.org.au/node/772>

By *Giles Ji Ungpakorn*, Bangkok
December 2, 2008 -- Today the constitutional court dissolved the 
democratically elected governing party, the People Power Party, in 
Thailand for the second time, forcing the government to resign. This 
follows the refusal of the armed forces and the police to follow 
government instructions to clear the two international airports blocked 
by armed People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) fascists.

    * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/772>


    Socialist Party of Malaysia: The left in coalition politics (+
    interview with PSM MP) <http://links.org.au/node/771>

/ /By *Jeyakumar Devaraj*
November 8, 2008 -- Ever since the First International, building and 
working within coalitions with other groups has been one of the 
strategies used by the left to attempt to advance its political agenda. 
This practice has continued up until the present.
However the strategy of working in coalitions with other groups has, 
fairly often, led to controversy, disagreements and even acrimonious 
splits, both of the coalitions as well as within the left parties 
involved themselves.
Why does this happen? Is the strategy of coalition work worth the effort 
and trouble? What are the benefits of coalition building? What are 
measures a socialist party can take to avoid some of the negative 
consequences of coalition political work?

    * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/771>


    The `third slump' and its consequences <http://links.org.au/node/770>

By *Phil Hearse*

November 30, 2008 -- Ernest Mandel called the market crash and global 
recession of 1974-5 the ``second slump'' (1) -- the first one being of 
course that of the 1930s, initiated by the stockmarket crash of 1929. We 
now know that the crash of 2008-9 is more severe, and will have more 
devastating consequences than that in the 1970s; whether it will be as 
bad as the 1930s slump we have yet to see. But it is now clear that this 
is a fundamental crisis of the neoliberal ``mode of regulation'' which 
now is under severe pressure and probably cannot survive in its present 
form.
Theorists who in this period stress the relative stability and 
continuity of modern capitalism are, as we shall see, way off the mark. 
This article aims to give a brief explanation of why the crash has 
happened; to situate it in the history of development of capitalism; to 
discuss possible consequences, especially those for the working class in 
Britain and internationally; and to suggest political implications for 
the radical left.

    * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/770>

* * *

/Links/ seeks to promote the international exchange of information, 
experience of struggle, theoretical analysis and views of political 
strategy and tactics within the international left. It is a forum for 
open and constructive dialogue between active socialists coming from 
different political traditions. It seeks to bring together those in the 
international left who are opposed to neoliberal economic and social 
policies. It aims to promote the renewal of the socialist movement in 
the wake of the collapse of the bureaucratic model of "actually existing 
socialism" in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.
*
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