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Newsletter Summer 2000-2001 contents

Full article available from link

Populism:"People power" or working class politics by Martin Thomas
"Why should Marxists want to narrow our appeal to "the workers", enrolling people from other classes only to the extent that they rally behind the working class? Why not seek a broader unity of "ordinary people"? Read on.

"Why the working class?" by Hal Draper - founder, Centre for Socialist History
"Why do socialists believe there is a special connection between their own great goal of a new society and the interests of labour, this one segment of society? Is it because we "idealize" workers as being better, or more clever, or more honest, or more courageous, or more humanitarian, than non-workers? - Isn't it rather true that the workers have time and again followed reactionary courses and leaders and have by no means shown any invariable affinity for progressive causes? ... Aren't they filled with race prejudice ... ? If it is true that workers are "naturally" pro-socialist, why is it they have made such a mess of things, voting for reactionaries and fakers and supporting the status quo? ... " Read on.

Failure to stop global warming will hit world's poor hardest by Bernard Teissier
As we go to press, representatives of the world's governments are meeting at The Hague to discuss cutting emissions of the greenhouse gases that cause global warming. Read on.

Jubilee 2000, the Left and 'Drop the Debt' Workers should not pay the bosses' debt by Colin Foster and Leon Parissi. Read on.

Breaking Chains by Riki Revolutskaya

  • Satellite crashes: pink dollar goes down Gay and lesbian media are nowhere to be seen in Australia right now.
  • Put lives before drug profits. 50 or more people held a lively rally and speak out on World AIDS day .Read on.
  • Close Ruddock's concentration camps! Freedom for everyone who comes to Australia to live and work by Lynn Smith
    Interview with Cyrus of the Iranian Refugee Associations Centre who arrived in Australia 10 years ago as a political refugee from fundamentalist oppression in Iran. Cyrus is now an Australian citizen and is fighting to assist those who came here under the same conditions as he did... Read on.

     

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    editorial - Israel out of the occupied territories! Self-determination for the Palestinians! Two nations, two states!

    Unity of Palestinian and Jewish workers key to lasting peace by Martin Thomas

    The key reason for the outbreak of violence in Israel and Palestine has been the increasing frustration of Palestinians with the painfully slow progress of the "peace process"...Others on the left look to the United Nations to secure justice for the Palestinians, this is foolish.

    How Barak lit the flames by Reuven Kaminer an Israeli socialist living in Jerusalem.

    For a just peace and full equality, from Gush Shalom (part of the Israeli peace movement) Barak plans "economic separation" against Palestinians.

    It could become like Bosnia by Michel Warshawski

    An appeal from 121 Palestinians
    In February of this year, we, a group of Palestinian academics and activists, addressed an urgent call to the Israeli public.

    Workers kicked Milosevic out not NATO! by Bob Myers, (of Workers' Aid)
    Anyone with a scrap of humanity will cheer the defeat of Milosevic. He does not bear sole responsibility for tearing Yugoslavia to bloody pieces, but his role was central.

    The S11/M1 Alliances and class politics by Melissa White
    "If S11 is going to start to become a real threat to class relations as they presently stand, it is a backward move to want to disenfranchise the anti-capitalist/anti-corporate movement from the unions ... it is sheer arrogance to think this at the same time as one hopes to put on a global general strike on, of all days, Mayday - the international workers' day - and to think that this can be done without the full weight of working class organisations in the form of trade unions behind it. But do the DSP even believe it themselves? The ISO is little better."

    So much for children's needs by Janet Burstall
    The Howard Federal government's new child support policy will increase conflict between separated parents.

    Russian workers fight the McBosses: struggle to unionise food processing workers wins support from Duma Deputies by Stan Crooke
    Two years ago this month a dozen workers at the "McComplex" McDonald's food-processing plant on the outskirts of Moscow decided to set up a trade union.

    Adidas sweatshops exposed by Martin Thomas
    It is not just Nike. Evidence given to the European Parliament shows that their rival Adidas is just as anti-worker. They subcontract the making of their brand name footwear and clothes to Third World sweatshops.

    US elections: Call this democracy? by Martin Thomas
    Call this democracy? The fiasco of the US presidential election is not just normal trouble as might arise in any democratic system with a narrow vote.

    Pop-Culture vs Corporate power by Naomi Klein author of "No Logo "
    Naomi Klein agreed to discuss the new anti-corporate/anti-capitalist movement with Workers' Liberty. This article is the result of that interview