[Marxism] What's new at Links: GM, Marta Harnecker, El Salvador, Racism in Australia, Via Campesina, Venezuela, Philippines, Malaysia, Tiananmen massacre, Nigeria

[glparramatta <glparramatta@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

What's new at Links: GM, Marta Harnecker, El Salvador, Racism in 
Australia, Via Campesina, Venezuela nationalisations, Philippines, 
Malaysia, Tiananmen massacre, Nigeria

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    Rick Wolff: GM -- The system strikes back; Michael Moore: `Convert
    the factories to build trains, buses, windmills'
    <http://links.org.au/node/1089>

By * Rick Wolff*
June 5, 2009 -- The greatest tragedies among many in the collapse and 
bankruptcy of General Motors (GM) concern what is /not/ happening. There 
are those solutions to GM's problems /not /being considered by Obama's 
administration. There are the solutions /not /being demanded by the 
United Auto Workers Union (UAW). There are all the solutions /not/ even 
being discussed by most left commentators on the disaster. Finally there 
are crucial aspects of GM's demise /not/ getting the attention they deserve.

    * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1089>


    El Salvador: New FMLN president declares: `Change begins now!'
    <http://links.org.au/node/1086>

Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador, June 3, 2009 -- 
On June 1, Mauricio Funes and Salvador Sanchez Cerén were sworn in as 
president and vice-president of El Salvador at the Feria Internacional 
Convention Center in San Salvador. It was a magical day for the 
Salvadoran people, social movement organisations, and the leftist 
Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN), which Funes and 
Sanchez Cerén represent.

    * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1086>


    World farmers' alliance Vía Campesina challenges food profiteers
    (excerpt from new pamphlet) <http://links.org.au/node/1079>

The following review is an excerpt from a new pamphlet, /La Vía 
Campesina: Farmers North and South Confront Agribusiness, /by John 
Riddell and Adriana Paz, published by /Socialist Voice/ in Canada.
Review by John Riddell**/
La Vía Campesina: Globalization and the Power of Peasants/* *by Annette 
Aurélie Desmarais. Fernwood Publishing, 2007.
May 31, 2009 -- The neoliberal assault that has driven labour into 
retreat over the last two decades has also sparked the emergence of a 
peasants' international, La Vía Campesina. Based in 56 countries across 
five continents, this alliance has mounted a sustained and spirited 
defence of peasant cultivation, community and control of food production.

    * Read more (or download pamphlet)
      <http://links.org.au/node/1079>


    Nationalisations and workers' control in Venezuela: 'When the
    working class roars, capitalists tremble'
    <http://links.org.au/node/1088>

By *Federico Fuentes*
June 1, 2009 -- Addressing the 400-strong May 21 workshop with workers 
from the industrial heartland of Guayana, dedicated to the "socialist 
transformation of basic industry", Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez 
noted with satisfaction the outcomes of discussions: "I can see, sense 
and feel the roar of the working class." "When the working class roars, 
the capitalists tremble", he said.
Chavez announced plans to implement a series of radical measures, 
largely drawn from proposals coming from the workers' discussion that 
day. The workers greeted each of Chavez's announcements with roars of 
approval, chanting "This is how you govern!"
Chavez said: "The proposals made have emerged from the depths of the 
working class. I did not come here to tell you what to do! It is you who 
are proposing this."

    * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1088>


    Marta Harnecker: Ideas for the struggle #5 -- Minorities can be
    right <http://links.org.au/node/1087>

[This is the fifth in a series of regular articles. *Click HERE for 
other articles in the series <http://links.org.au/taxonomy/term/368>*. 
Please return to /Links/ regularly read the next articles in the series.]
By *Marta Harnecker*
Democratic centralism implies not only the subordination of the minority 
to the majority, but also *the respect of the majority towards the 
minority*.

    * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1087>


    Philippines: `Let us now begin the Revolution for Change'
    <http://links.org.au/node/1085>

Opening talk by *Sonny Melencio* to the "/Pagbabago!/ No More Trapos in 
2010!" forum
June 1, 2009 -- On behalf of Partido Lakas ng Masa (Party of the 
Labouring Masses), I would like to extend our thanks to our two guests 
here who will be speaking together with me in this forum.
One has already symbolised the struggle against the /trapo/ [elite 
politicians], and I refer to Among Ed. Among Ed has in fact defeated not 
only the three Gs that have come to symbolise the ``guns, goons and 
gold'' wielded by the trapos. In Pampanga, Among Ed has beaten the five 
Gs -- which includes two more Gs representing Philippines President 
Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and the gambling lords.
The other one symbolised the call for change, in fact the call for the 
ouster of the Arroyo regime, during the Manila Peninsula rebellion on 
November 29, 2007. He is not with us today, because he's still in 
detention, but he is represented by his lawyer Attorney Trixie 
Cruz-Angeles, who's going to give us the message from Brigadier General 
Danilo Lim.

    * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1085>


    Assaults on Indians in Australia: Globalisation, recession and
    renewed racism <http://links.org.au/node/1084>

By the *Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation*
June 4, 2009 -- The continuing spate of attacks and violence against 
Indians and Indian students in particular in Australia has once again 
exploded the much-touted myth that globalisation promotes and respects 
pluralism and multiculturalism. The response of the Australian 
government has been shockingly muted, trying to cover up and even deny 
the racist dimensions of the attacks, terming them as just routine 
robberies and muggings. If so, why do Indians constitute a 
disproportionate share of the victims --- 30% in Melbourne?

    * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1084>


    China: Looking back on the 1989 democracy movement and the Tiananmen
    Square massacre <http://links.org.au/node/1083>

To mark the 20th anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, 
/Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal /reproduces an excerpt 
from an analysis by an eyewitness to the 1989 democratic upsurge that 
preceded the brutal attack. The writer was an Australian socialist who 
was studying in China at the time. It first appeared in /Green Left 
Weekly/ on June 26, 1996.
By *Liang Guosheng*
On June 4, 1989, troops, armoured personnel carriers and tanks of the 
People's Liberation Army (PLA) forced their way through human and 
constructed barricades into central Beijing, taking control of Tiananmen 
Square. In the process, according to an estimate by Amnesty 
International soon afterwards, approximately 1000 unarmed protesters 
were gunned down or otherwise killed.

    * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1083>


    New pamphlet: The Tamil Freedom Struggle in Sri Lanka
    <http://links.org.au/node/1082>

/The Tamil Freedom Struggle in Sri Lanka/
By Chris Slee, Brian Senewiratne, Vickramabahu Karunarathne
Published by Resistance Books
2009, 40pages

*Click HERE to order.* 
<http://www.resistancebooks.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=805>


    Nigeria: The video Shell does not want you to see
    <http://links.org.au/node/1081>

June 1, 2009 -- A pre-trial conference scheduled in the potentially 
landmark lawsuit brought by Nigerian plaintiffs against oil giant Royal 
Dutch Shell has been delayed until June 3. The conference was announced 
following the decision by the presiding judge in the US Southern 
District Court in New York to delay indefinitely the actual trial. Jury 
selection in the trial itself had been meant to start April 27, but was 
put off the day before. No new date was set. Shell is accused of 
complicity in the 1995 hanging of Ken Saro-Wiwa, a renowned writer and 
activist, and other leaders of a movement protesting alleged 
environmental destruction and other abuses by Shell against the Ogoni 
people in the Niger Delta.

    * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1081>


    Malaysian socialists call for communist veteran Chin Peng to be
    allowed home <http://links.org.au/node/1080>

May 31, 2009 -- The Socialist Party of Malaysia (PSM, Parti Sosialis 
Malaysia) became the latest party to urge the government to allow former 
Communist Party of Malaya (CPM) chief Chin Peng to return home for good. 
The PSM said the government must honour the peace accord that it signed 
with the Communist Party of Malaya in 1989 and allow former CPM leader 
Chin Peng to return.

    * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1080>


    Marta Harnecker: Ideas for the struggle #4 -- Should we reject
    bureaucratic centralism and simply use consensus?
    <http://links.org.au/node/1078>

[This is the fourth in a series of regular articles. *Click HERE for 
other articles in the series <http://links.org.au/taxonomy/term/368>*. 
Please return to /Links/ regularly read the next articles in the series.]
By *Marta Harnecker*, translated by *Federico Fuentes*
For a long time, left-wing parties operated along authoritarian lines. 
The usual practice was that of *bureaucratic* *centralism,* influenced 
by the experiences of Soviet socialism. *All decisions regarding 
criterion, tasks, initiatives, and the course of political action to 
take were restricted to the party elite**, without the participation or 
debate of the membership*, who were limited to following orders that 
they never got to discuss and in many cases did not understand. For most 
people, such practices are increasing intolerable.

    * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1078>

* * *
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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