[Marxism] What's new at Links: European election & left unity, Nepal, New Zealand, DSP & Tamils, Ireland, Marta Harnecker, Australia, Steve Early, US health

[glparramatta <glparramatta@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

What's new at Links: European election & left unity, Nepal, New Zealand 
& left unity, DSP & Tamils, Ireland, Marta Harnecker, left unity in 
Australia, Steve Early, US health

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    European election: `An alarm is ringing' -- time `to build the
    broadest possible left unity' <http://links.org.au/node/1101>

Statement by *Socialist Resistance* (Britain)
... The dog which hardly barked in Britain was the radical left, which 
paid the price for years of division.... The radical left have to see 
these elections as a massive wake-up call for reorganisation and unity 
in advance of the general election. It's clear enough what the agenda of 
a Tory government will be if it gets a clear mandate... The task now, 
therefore, is to build the broadest possible unity for the general 
election. This will not be easy after the events of recent years but it 
is an imperative of the first order.

    * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1101>


    Nepal: Maoist student leader -- `It is still a fight to establish a
    democratic republic, for establishing a socialist system'
    <http://links.org.au/node/1100>

/ /*Ben Peterson* interviewed *Manushi Bhattarai*. She is part of the 
Maoist team that won student elections at Tribhuvan University -- 
Nepal's largest university.
Q: The All Nepal National Independent Student Union (Revolutionary) 
(ANNISU(R)) won the student elections at Tribhuvan University. What did 
the campaign involve, and what are some of your policies as a 
revolutionary student union?

    * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1100>


    European election: 60% abstain; gains for the right; revolutionary
    left wins seats in Portugal and Ireland <http://links.org.au/node/1094>

There was a broad popular abstention in the European elections. Nearly 
60% of voters did not vote. Because of this, only a deformed vision of 
the real relationship of forces in Europe is possible. But it confirms 
the crisis of legitimacy of the European Union and of the governing 
parties that implement their policies within this framework, writes 
*François Sabado*.** **Other tendencies emerge, initially a rise of the 
right across Europe.

    * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1094>


    European election: British left discusses urgent need for left unity
    <http://links.org.au/node/1093>

By *Phil Hearse
*The outcome of the county council and European parliament elections 
means that the British left -- the left to the left of New Labour -- has 
to wake up and break out of its dire sectarian, bureaucratic and 
factional mindsets. Nothing is more shameful than the lack of of united 
left slate, around a minimal set of demands in the interets of the 
working class, in these elections. The near absence of the left from the 
electoral field was one important reason -- though far from the only one 
-- that such a large number of the protest votes against the main 
parties went to the hard-right United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) 
and the fascist British National Party (BNP). It is shameful that the 
left abandons so much of the electoral field to the far right because of 
nothing more than hardened, bone-headed, factional idiocy -- topped off 
by bureaucratic exclusions and anathemas.

    * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1093>


    New Zealand: Responding to the crisis -- Broad left unity to
    mobilise masses of people <http://links.org.au/node/1099>

By *Vaughan Gunson*

/Unity/, May 2009 -- Facing the left today are incredible challenges. 
The global economic meltdown, combined with the nightmare scenarios of 
runaway climate change and resource depletion, looms as a human disaster 
of an unimaginable scale. The question we are all asking ourselves: is 
how can we organise ourselves and grassroots people into a movement that 
has the strength and vision to set the world on a different course?
Over the last decade Socialist Worker-New Zealand, a small Marxist 
organisation, has moved towards the realisation that we need to be 
building alongside other activists a broad left party which has the 
breadth and reach to give leadership to masses of people. And that we 
need to begin now, not later.

    * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1099>


    DSP reiterates support for the right of self-determination for the
    Tamil people <http://links.org.au/node/1098>

*Democratic Socialist Perspective (Australia)* statement in response to 
the United Nations Human Rights Council resolution on Sri Lanka
June 12, 2009 -- The Democratic Socialist Perspective (DSP) -- a Marxist 
organisation affiliated to the Socialist Alliance of Australia -- 
supports the right of Tamils to self-determination. We have campaigned 
in solidarity with the Tamil people for several decades. For example, at 
the time of the 1983 massacre the DSP worked with the Tamil community in 
Australia to organise protests. This year too, the DSP, Socialist 
Alliance and Resistance worked closely with Tamil communities, including 
helping organise rallies, to highlight the calls for a ceasefire and for 
self-determination.

    * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1098>


    Ireland: Socialist Workers Party calls for a `broad radical left
    party' <http://links.org.au/node/1097>

By the *Socialist Workers Party (Ireland)*
June 11, 2009 -- The election of Joe Higgins as MEP and the defeat of 
Fianna Fail in Dublin indicates that the political landscape is 
changing. The recent elections represent a seismic shift in Irish 
politics. Ever since 1927, Fianna Fail has dominated the working-class 
vote but this has now changed -- most probably forever.

    * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1097>


    Uniting the socialist left: the Australian experience
    <http://links.org.au/node/1096>

*Peter Boyle* is national secretary of the Democratic Socialist 
Perspective (DSP), a Marxist tendency in the Socialist Alliance in 
Australia. He was interviewed by /Socialist Voice/ (Canada) co-editor 
*Roger Annis*.*/
Socialist Voice/: **The Australian left founded a project of left unity 
and activism in 2001. Can you describe the early years of that project 
and what it achieved?*
*Peter Boyle: *The Socialist Alliance was formed in 2001 on the back of 
great optimism about the prospects for left revival in the wake of the 
rise of a movement at that time against capitalist globalisation. Some 
20,000 people had participated in a three-day long blockade of a summit 
of the World Economic Forum in Melbourne the previous year. That was 
Australia's "Seattle" and it was followed up on May 1, 2001 with mass 
blockades of the stock exchanges in all the capital cities of the country.

    * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1096>


    Marta Harnecker: Ideas for the struggle #7 -- Reasons for popular
    scepticism concerning politics and politicians
    <http://links.org.au/node/1095>

[This is the seventh 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*
1. In one of my previous articles, I stated that in order to wage an 
effective struggle against neoliberalism, it is necessary to unite all 
those suffering its consequences, and to achieve this objective we must 
start with the left itself, which in our countries tends to be very 
dispersed. But, *there are many obstacles that impede this task. The 
first step to overcoming them is to be aware of them and be prepared to 
face them*.
2. One of these obstacles is *the growing popular scepticism regarding 
politics and politicians*.
3. This has to do, among other things, with the *great constraints that 
exist today in our democratic systems*, which are very different to 
those that existed prior to the military dictatorships.

    * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1095>


    United States: Solidarity sometimes (exclusive excerpt from Steve
    Early's new book, Embedded With Organized Labor)
    <http://links.org.au/node/1092>

[With the permission of Monthly Review Press, /Links International 
Journal of Socialist Renewal/ is publishing an exclusive excerpt from 
Steve Early's new book, /Embedded With Organized Labor: Journalistic 
Reflections on the Class War at Home/. /Embedded With Organized Labor/ 
describes how trade union members in the United States have organised 
successfully, on the job and in the community, in the face of employer 
opposition now and in the past. Steve Early has produced a provocative 
series of essays -- an unusual exercise in "participatory labor 
journalism" useful to any reader concerned about social and economic 
justice. As workers struggle to survive and the labour movements try to 
revive during the current economic crisis, this book provides ideas and 
inspiration for trade union activists and friends of labour alike.

    * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1092>


    Swine flu and the case for a single-payer healthcare system in the
    United States <http://links.org.au/node/1091>

By *Billy Wharton*
June 3, 2009 -- On April 13, 2009, 39-year-old Adela María Gutiérrez 
Cruz became the first victim of a new virus that would become known as 
the swine flu (H1N1). By the time Cruz arrived at a local hospital on 
April 9, she had already entered acute respiratory distress due to an 
"atypical pneumonia". Further investigations led to a town outside of a 
factory farm, run by a subsidiary of the US meat conglomerate Smithfield 
Foods, in the neighbouring state of Vera Cruz. Causalities began to 
mount. Yet, nearly two weeks after the first deaths, none of the 
families of the dead had received anti-viral medications.(1) Mexican 
health officials claimed to not have the resources to visit the families.

    * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1091>


    Marta Harnecker: Ideas for the struggle #6 -- The need to unite the
    party left and the social left <http://links.org.au/node/1090>

By *Marta Harnecker*
1. *The rejection by a majority of the people of the globalisation model 
imposed on our continent intensifies each day* given its inability to 
solve the most pressing problems of our people. *Neoliberal policies* 
implemented by large transnational financial capital, which is backed by 
a large military and media power, and whose hegemonic headquarters can 
be found in the United States, *have not only been unable to resolve 
these problems but, on the contrary, have dramatically increased misery 
and social exclusion*, while concentrating wealth in increasingly fewer 
hands.

    * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1090>

* * *
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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