Repost: Students under Occupation feat interview with Mordechai Vanunu 2003

Originally posted on Leninism 2.0

Tonight's Branch Meeting: 40 years since Stonewall, are gays and lesbians equal now?

Branch Meeting for 26th of February
7.30pm at Kitap Evi Bookshop, Tottenham High Road, N17 9JB


40 years since Stonewall: Are gays and lesbians equal now?

With Colin Wilson

Tonights meeting will be on the acheivements of the LGBT liberation movement that began so spectacularly with the Stonewall riots of 1969, and where the fight for gay rights stands today.

A radical appraisal of the politics of gay liberation is necessary to answer questions about how we organise to fight oppression across the working class.

Where did the movement succeed, and where did it not go far enough? What have been the political consequences for gay people, and the class as a whole in the 40 years since.

Democracy Commission Meeting

Hello comrades,

A meeting has been scheduled for Monday the 9th of March for a report back from the Democracy Commission, set up at this year's Party Conference. This is your opportunity to find out what the members of the Commission consider their role to be, and to put questions and issues forward for their consideration.

The original message is attached:

MONDAY 9th MARCH
Kitap Evi Bookhouse,410 High Road, Tottenham, at 7.30pm

This is your opportunity to look at and strengthen all aspects of the party's democracy. Pat Stack and Alex Callinicos will be speaking and there will be plenty of time for discussion and questions.

We are urging all comrades to bring their ideas to the meeting. Please find attached two documents you might find useful.

If you would like to submit a document, please e-mail it to dc@swp.org.uk.
If you have any questions, please call me on 0207 819 1170.

In solidarity,
Berit Kuennecke

Report from UAF conference

The Unite Against Fascism National Conference took place last week in the TUC conference centre.

Speakers included: Ken Livingstone, Glyn Ford MEP, Edie Freidman JCORE, Dr Abdul Bari MCB, Billy Hayes CWU, John McClure - Reverend and the makers, Weyman Bennett UAF, Sabby Dhalu UAF & NAAR, and Martin Smith - Love Music Hate Racism.

The conference began with an overview of how we can fight the fascist BNP, the main auditorium was packed with an eclectic mix people, differing in race, gender, age, sexuality, religion etc. The opening speakers discussed the relationship between recession and the rise of fascism.

Workshops were organised into smaller seminar rooms, with the following themes; Racism and rebutting myths, Music against Racism and Fascism, organised by LMHR and Campaigning against the BNP in the European Elections.

The workshop I attended focused on a strategy for combating the fascist BNP in the forthcoming European elections. The discussion proved insightful and inspiring, some very dedicated people and from trade unions and community organisations detailed how they were fighting back - I was impressed by their knowledge and determination.

The final meeting saw hundreds of people cram into the main auditorium once more. We heard from Ken Livingstone, Peter Hain MP, Wes Streeting (NUS President), Mark Serwotka (General Secretary PCS) and Martin Smith (LMHR).

The speakers made historical comparisons with the fight we face today, with Peter Hain MP and Martin Smith both involved in the precursor to UAF, the Anti Nazi League. They spoke passionately about the work of the UAF and how important that it is to organise and defeat the fascists once again.

Organise locally and nationally and encourage people to vote, the overarching strategy of the UAF is just that, get people to vote. This could mean setting up stalls, selling newspapers, knocking on doors to ensure people are registered to vote and are going to do so. The fascist BNP do not have wide support and with high voter turnout, they will not gain positions of electoral office.

All speakers advocated that the fight should be led from the left and discounted the idea of a 'centre led' fight against the BNP as nonsense. The idea of encouraging people to tactically vote was also dismissed; we simply have to get people to vote for anyone but the fascist BNP.

We are many, they are few. A sentiment that emerged from the conference which, will run through the European election offensive and beyond.

What next?

• Regional conferences in the South West, Stoke, Yorkshire and Humberside and the Midlands


• National Days of Action – 4/5 April, 2/3 May, 30/31 May. Involving leafleting and campaigning in our city centres against the BNP


• http://www.uaf.org.uk/

I encourage comrades reading this to get involved with building UAF in north London to stop the fascists from organising.

Contact UAFNorthLondon@gmail.com for more details on how to get involved.

Repost: Two more universities in occupation

Two more occupations comrades, to add to the list (its getting too long for me to remember).

University of The Arts blog

Plymouth Blog

Plymouth University and BAE Systems

BAE Systems have sold equipment to Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Zimbabwe and - more specifically - 236 F-16 Fighters to the Israeli state. In February 2007 it was announced that BAE contracts in 6 countries were under investigation by the Serious Fraud Office for "suspected international corruption."

Originally posted on Solomon's Mindfield

Video of 100,000 marchers in Ireland

Video reporting on the struggle against the Irish governments' proposed pensions levy.

Originally posted on Socialist Aoteroa

Upcoming Stop the War events: Taking the show on the road

PROTEST AT THE G20 IN LONDON.
Demonstrate Wednesday April 1st Central London.
Protest at the summit Thursday April 2nd.

The leaders of the world's big powers will meet at the G20 summit in London on April 2. It is Barack Obama's first visit to Britain. It is our chance to demand a change from Bush's war policies. The Stop the War Coalition, Palestine Solidarity Campaign, The British Muslim Initiative, and CND have called two protests at the G20; a march and rally in central London on the afternoon of April 1st, and a protest to the conference itself on April 2nd. In the afternoon of April 1st we will be marching through Central London while Barack Obama speaks to Parliament. On Thursday morning we will be protesting to the summit itself at the Excel Centre in East London.

Our message will be 'Yes We Can'. Yes we can end the siege of Gaza and free Palestine, get the troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan, make jobs not bombs, abolish nukes, stop arming Israel.

NO TO NATO, STRASBOURG 1-5 April

The international anti war movement has called a series of protests at the NATO summit in Strasbourg in France. There will be a massive international demonstration on Saturday 4th. Among other things the demo will be demanding all foreign troops out of Afghanistan. There will be blockades of the conference on Friday 3rd and Saturday 4th and a counter summit that ends on Sunday 5th. Noam Chomsky and Tariq Ali will be among the speakers. Stop the War is organising a British contingent leaving on the morning of Friday 3rd April.

To book your seat on a Stop the War coach go
here.

Stop Press: NATO tries to halt Strasbourg demonstration

NATO and the French authorities are threatening to ban the international 'No to NATO, No to War' demonstration in Strasbourg on Saturday 4 April. NATO's 60th anniversary meeting will be held inside a Red Zone that encompasses the whole of the city centre. Even Strasbourg residents will need a special pass to come and go in their own city. Now the authorities are threatening to excludethe international peace demonstration from the city. The international coalition calling the demonstration are organising a wave of protest at this attack on the right to demonstrate.

Sign the petition at http://www.petitiononline.com/nato/petition.html

Write to the President of France at http://www.elysee.fr/ecrire/

CAIRO CONFERENCE March 27/28/29, Cairo

For seven years the Cairo Conference has been a vital meeting place for those fighting against war and occupation in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine and beyond. It brings together activists from the Middle East and the international anti-war movements. Participants include trade unionists, activists from the national liberation movements, and representatives from all the radical parties.

Direct flights are available with BA for under £300 & there is a wide range of inexpensive accommodation in Cairo.

For more information please phone Stop the War, or e-mail cairoconference@stopwar.org.uk

Sign the petition: South African and Australian Dock Workers Boycotting Israeli Cargo

Comrades,

Workers from the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union (SATAWU) in Durban, and Western Australian dock worker members of the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA), are refusing to handle Israeli cargo.

This is a brave and principled response to the Israeli massacre in Gaza, and I would urge you to sign the petition, and get others to do so as well.

The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) has called on "other workers and unions to follow suit and to do all that is necessary to ensure that they boycott all goods to and from Israel until Palestine is free.”

This is an issue that we should all raise in our union branches, and another area to push for a concerted working class response to imperial aggression.

Please sign the petition at: http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/LaborforPalestine

Repost: This is Israel

Originally posted on Lenins Tomb:

This is a video of IDF soldiers, having invaded a Palestinian village in the West Bank, attacking local residents and internationals:



As the Angry Arab usually says of events like this, "this is Zionism".

Today's Branch Meeting

Hello comrades,

Tonight's branch meeting will be with Elaine Graham-Leigh, on "The Slump of the 1930s and the Crisis today", and will be held as usual at Kitap Evi bookshop on Tottenham High Road at 7.30 pm.

The task of socialists in an economic crisis is not just to organise fightbacks to lessen the effects of vicious attacks on pay and conditions, but also to explain why these recurent crashes are a feature of the capitalist system. One way that we can do this, and help to build resistance to the system as a whole, is to keep the memory of past struggles alive.

While most mainstream commentators may dismiss the 30s as a period of massive setbacks and disintegtration, we remember the great social movements that grew up out of the experience of the economic downturn.

Come to the meeting, and discuss whether the lessons of the past still hold true today, and what we can do to apply them.

Building for protests at the G20

The membership of the G-20 comprises:

• the finance ministers and central bank governors of the G7, 12 other key countries, and the European Union Presidency
  
• the European Central Bank
  
• the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund
  
• the Chairman of the IMF
  
• the President of the World Bank
  
• the Chairman of the Development Committee

These are the people that decide the fate of billions of workers around the world, and they are almost without exception the same people that are responsible for the current crisis.

We know what their response to the crisis will be: more attacks on workers, more assaults on public spending and public services and pouring yet more public money into the coffers of the capitalists who got us here.

It is more important than ever that we build a mass protest movement on the level of the 1999 Seattle protests, to fight for the rights of workers and ordinary people. We are the ones with power in this society, and we can make them pay for the damage that they have done, and intend to do. The only way to do this is to appeal to radical organisations, trade unions and workers both nationally and internationally to come together in a constructive way.

I believe that now is the time to begin thinking about this issue, and coming up with creative ways to engage with people, and move the debate forward.

London wide 'Unity Against the Crisis' meeting this Tuesday‏

This Tuesday there is an important meeting in central London:

We Need Unity Against the Crisis
Tuesday 10th February at 6.30pm
Friends meeting House, 173 Euston Road, London, NW1(opp Euston Station)

In the wake of the debate around the wild cat strikes and the slogan'British jobs for British workers' Mark Serwotka (PCS General Secretary), Jean Yves Lesage (a French printer and member of CGT), a shop steward from the Waterford Glass occupation and Ray Morrell (Editor of the Amicus Unity Gazette and NSSN steering committee)(pc) will be speaking at a meeting on Tuesday in London.

It is very important to stress that this is not just a meeting for trade unionists. The debates and issues go to the heart of the response by the working class to the crisis.

This should be an exciting event and we need to build it as widely aspossible with trade unionists and campaigners, as well as in workplaces, colleges, schools and your local area. Attached is a flyer to advertise the meeting and a broadly-based statement which people can sign, to be used on Saturday sales, industrial sales, and in your workplaces and colleges.

The statement can also be signed online at www.petitiononline.com/jobs0209/

Lobby David Lammy

A lobby of David Lammy, the local member of parliament has been organised by Haringey Justice for Palestinians for Friday the 6th of February. The details are listed below:

Emergency Public Meeting: Why 'British Jobs for British Workers' is no solution to the economic crisis

Millions of working people across Britain are fearful and angry at the mounting economic crisis. Manu­fac­turing industry is now shedding jobs at a rate of 30,000 a month. Now this fear and anger has exploded into unofficial strike action with thousands of workers in oil refineries and power plants walking out.

They are right to want to fight this recession. But the central slogan of the current wave of strike action, “British jobs for British workers”, targets the wrong people and points in a dangerous direction. But “foreign workers” are not to blame for mounting unemployment, rampant subcontracting or worsening pay and conditions on construction sites.

The blame for these things lies squarely with the bosses – of whatever nationality – aided and abetted by neoliberal politicians such as trade secretary Lord Mandelson, the high priest of the free market.

It is our responsibility to argue against right-wing ideas in the strike movement, and put forward the case for solidarity with workers regardless of their nationality. There will be a meeting of the Tottenham branch, to discuss the impact of the current strikes and our response to them at Kitap Evi bookshop, Tottenham High Road, on Thursday the 5th at 7.30pm. All comrades are encouraged to attend.

http://www.swp.org.uk/resources/general030209.pdf

http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=17051