Archive for the ‘Ernest Mandel’ Category
“When more than 70,000 demonstrators gathered in Prague on 3rd September, two different stories immediately emerged” – The Art of Telling Stories and A Wake-Up Call for the Left
In 2022, Previously stable political certainties have been shredded on the European Continent. One example comes from Prague, capital city of the Czech Republic. It is dramatic. The far-right : anti-vaxxers, anti-Ukrainian racists, fans of ultra-racist imperialists Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin – led the demonstrators. Vivek Prokop explores “a wake-up call for the left”
Source : http://www.europe-solidaire.org/spip.php?article63953
Czechia: the crowd on Wenceslas Square
Sunday 11 September 2022, by PROKOP Vítek
They say that politics is an art: the art of compromise, the art of getting along with people, but also the art of telling stories. When more than 70,000 demonstrators gathered in Prague on 3rdSeptember, two different stories immediately emerged. According to one story, it was an action by the Russian fifth column, according to the other story, it was a protest by desperate citizens. So what was really happening on Wenceslas Square?
At first glance, it seems that everything important about this “Czech Republic First “protest has already been said. For example, the fact that one of the organizers, Ladislav Vrabel, has big debts, and that the money to organize the protest was sent to a non-transparent account belonging to his wife. Another key organizer, Jiří Havel, has become famous for recommending chlorine dioxide, which is otherwise used as bleach, for the treatment of covid. Both men are members of the anti-globalisation movement “Restart World Freedom,” which was launched by the American investment banker and Donald Trump supporter Catherine Austin Fitts.
Read the rest of this entry »Support Ukrainian Resistance and Disempower Fossil Capital
Several left-wing authors co-operate here arguing for support to Ukrainian Resistance against the Russian imperialist invasion. The authors come from several different parts of Europe.
This is the source : http://europe-solidaire.org/spip.php?article63931
Thursday 18 August 2022, by BUDRAITSKIS Ilya, DUTCHAK Oksana, ETZBACH Harald, GEHRKE Bernd, GELINSKY Eva, HÜRTGEN Renate, KOWALEWSKI Zbigniew Marcin , LOMONOSOVA Nataliia, PEREKHODA Hanna, PILASH Denis, POPOVYCH Zakhar, SCHMID Philipp, WÄLZ Christoph, WIELGOSZ Przemysław, ZELLER Christian
Similar debates are occurring on the left in Ireland : https://tomasoflatharta.com/2022/08/22/a-strange-policy-is-reviewed-support-ukraines-resistance-against-an-imperialist-russian-invasion-politically-but-oppose-giving-arms-to-the-resisters-a-critique-of-iri/
On June 9, Heino Berg, Thies Gleiss, Jakob Schäfer, Matthias Schindler, Winfried Wolf published a detailed statement in Junge Welt in which they advocated an “anti-militarist defeatism” and the abandonment of Ukraine’s military resistance to the Russian war of occupation. [1] We take her article as an opportunity for a fundamental response about a necessary anti-imperialist ecosocialist perspective committed to global solidarity. We are appalled at the way they bend the reality of war in this article and ultimately argue in favor of Putin’s oligarch regime. Paternalistically, they recommend that the Ukrainian population submit to Russian occupation in order to end the war. The authors make not the slightest reference to socialist, feminist, and anarchist forces in Ukraine and Russia. They argue from a distinctly German perspective. They are not alone in this. Many statements of the old peace movement turn against the “escalation of the West” and “forget” that Russia has already escalated long ago and wants to systematically destroy Ukrainian society. The statement of the five authors ignores anti-imperialist solidarity to such an extent that we consider it appropriate to set our arguments against it.
Reversal of Responsibility
The statement of the authors reads like many contributions from the old peace movement and a one-sided sham anti-imperialist left. Of course, at the beginning of the text they condemn the invasion of Ukraine “without any reservation or relativization.” But afterwards they do exactly that: they relativize the aggression of the Putin oligarchy. Under the title “No Interest in Ceasefire,” they explain in detail why NATO is much worse than Russia and that the West, first and foremost the U.S., does not want an early ceasefire but is primarily using the Ukrainian battlefield to weaken Russia.
Read the rest of this entry »French Lessons for Irish Forelock-Tuggers : “We are a republican country. Why should I pay tribute to a foreign monarch?”
The Irish élite and its satellites 🛰 are tugging the forelock to the British Monarchy after the death of Queen Elizabeth II. French left-wing politicians are having none of it. The message must spread in Ireland, and other parts of the world. “We are a republican country. Why should I pay tribute to a foreign monarch?”
Several left-wing mayors are defying government orders to fly flags at half-mast for the Queen’s funeral, earning support from French people who say President Macron and the media are lavishing excessive attention on the British monarchy.
Report Source : The Times (England, September 12 2022) Charles Bremmer, Paris.
The row was opened when Yann Galut, mayor of the central city of Bourges, and Patrick Proisy, mayor of Faches-Thumesnil, on the Belgian border, announced that they would disobey the instruction from Élisabeth Borne, the prime minister, that town halls and other public buildings must lower the Tricolour to half-mast next Monday, the day of the funeral.
Read the rest of this entry »After over 6 months of war Ukrainian workers need to hear our voices of support
Irish Left With Ukraine (ILWU) distributed this leaflet at an Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) Global Solidarity Summer School.
After over 6 months of war Ukrainian workers need to hear our voices of support
Irish Left with Ukraine are a recently-formed group of trade unionists, socialists and anarchists who have come together to help to amplify voices of support from the Irish Left for Ukrainian workers and trade unionists in their desperate attempts to repel the Russian invasion of their country. We believethere is absolutely no excuse for the savagery, destruction and death that hasbeen unleashed on the people of Ukraine. Claims that Putin is trying to remove fascism or ‘denazify’ Ukraine are palpably false. He is in fact one of the biggest supporters of the far right and it is clear that this is an attempt by Russian imperialism to expand the territory under Russian control.
Read the rest of this entry »“The biggest and most destructive war in Europe since the Second World War. A war waged for more than four months against Ukraine, the second largest country in Europe, by Putin’s Russia, the largest country in Europe!” – Demands that the left should put forward
The author of this report is Stefan Bekier, a former left opposition activist in Poland against the dictatorship of the “Communist” Party and an activist of Ensemble! in France https://fourth.international/fr/europe/88.
Source : https://www.europe-solidaire.org/spip.php?article63883
The majority of the left in France – we’ll leave aside the sectors that openly support Putin – condemns this war of aggression by Russian imperialism, demands the withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine. But at the same time, it remains paralysed and voiceless, abandoning the field of defence of Ukraine to Macron, to the bourgeoisie.
A deafening, shocking silence
Presidential and parliamentary elections are traditionally the moment when strategic priorities are debated and compared, including those concerning the international situation. But, for most of the left in France, it is clear that Putin’s Russian war against Ukraine was not part of its strategic priorities during these elections. Probably, to avoid the very important divergences on this issue between the different components of the left-wing coalition Nupes from coming to light during the election campaign and weakening the very promising new alliance. In particular, in relation to the very controversial positions of part of the left on Ukraine and Russia since the annexation of Crimea and the invasion of Donbass in 2014. So much so that during the elections the subject practically disappeared within the left
Read the rest of this entry »Britain – “The War on Woke”
Attacks on trans people are an international phenomenon in the 2020’s. The article below examines these bizarre and dangerous politics in Britain, where they have featured in the grisly Conservative party contest to replace British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Predicted winner Liz Truss is likely to promote a couple of transphobes to high-level Cabinet posts. These developments are likely to encourage transphobes in Ireland who recently got a boost on RTÉ Radio 1 presenter Joe Duffy’s live phone-in programme.
The source of this article is the British revolutionary socialist publication Anti-Capitalist Resistance. https://anticapitalistresistance.org/the-war-on-woke/
roland rance details the latest goings-on in the anti-trans moral panic, placing Kathleen Stock’s appalling attacks on trans people, their defenders and families, in the context of reactionary attempts to divide liberatory struggles.
When examined, the moral panic about trans people never survives surface scrutiny. To pick a recent example, when transphobic academic Kathleen Stock resigned last year from her post at Sussex University, it was widely misreported that she had been sacked for her views. This was then used to smear supporters of trans rights and opponents of bigotry as “censors”, and Stock was misleadingly compared to academics who had been fired from their jobs because of their support for Palestinian rights. Unfortunately, this sleight of hand was echoed by some on the left, who mistakenly accepted this comparison, and expressed solidarity with Stock on that basis.
Read the rest of this entry »Ukraine: To undermine NATO retrenchment, the left must fight to win the peace – Ali Khan writes from Berlin
Ali Khan offers a provocation for supporting Ukraine’s military effort
Sources : https://www.theleftberlin.com/provocation-reflections-on-ukraine-and-nato/. and http://www.europe-solidaire.org/spip.php?article63745
Today’s radical left has long recognised only one foe, that which Ayatollah Khomeini aptly titled “The Great Satan” – namely the USA. Little attention was paid lately to about “The Lesser Satan” – or Russia. For over 30 years after the fall of the USSR, we only imagined a single imperialist actor on the world stage. But 179 days ago we were reminded of the presence of another imperialist contender with full force. For too many, memories of the World War I collaboration of Social Democratic parties and the labour movement linger. The depressing jingoism of Western Europe and the USA prevents us from assessing a moral and rational response to the situation. As useful as historical parallels are, when we face a situation with almost no convenient parallel, at least none that are readily accessible and understandable to a population at large, we face a most difficult intellectual challenge. Let us not be fazed.
Read the rest of this entry »Ireland Fought for Freedom against an Empire – Now we on the Irish Left Support Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom – Leaflet Published by Irish Left With Ukraine (ILWU)
The ILWU is a new solidarity organization based on the following points of agreement :
Basic Principles :
◦ Russian Troops Out of Ukraine Now
◦ Refugees Welcome Here
◦ Self-Determination for the Ukrainian People
◦ Neither Moscow nor Washington
The ILWU supports the European Network for Solidarity With Ukraine (ENSU) https://ukraine-solidarity.eu/
This is the first public leaflet issued by the ILWU. A Ukrainian translation follows the English text.
Ireland Fought for Freedom against an Empire – Now we on the Irish Left Support Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom
We are a group of trade unionists, socialists and anarchists who want to express our full support to you and help you organise to obtain all your rights while you are in Ireland.
Tomás Ó Flatharta 