World Workers' Movements Newswire Archive

A text written in the hope of an empowering self-critical debate in autonomous and anarchist circles about what happened and what didn´t happen during the protests against the g8...
one swallow doesn´t make a summer

Hashmeya Muhsin Hussein, Pres. Electrical Utility Workers Union and Faleh Abood Umara, General Sec. of the Federation of Oil Unions are currently on a speaking tour of the US, see:  http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/06/374129.html

The Crown Prosecution Service has taken up and immediately dropped a case of alleged witness intimidation against high level officials at Kingston University on the grounds that no crime had taken place, since the acts occurred in connection with Employment Tribunal proceedings. Can it really be the case that Witness Intimidation is, in effect, perfectly legal when it occurs against parties to an Employment Tribunal? Could Parliament really have meant for it to be that way when they wrote the Criminal Justice and Police Act of 2001?

23 August 2007 will be the 80th anniversary of the state murder of Niccola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti. Italian-American anarchist militants, they were convicted of murder during the 'red scare' by a prosecutor who didn't hesitate to use their radicalism to bias the jury against them and before a prejudiced judge.

Anti-war activists should be heartened that U.S. Labor Against the War (USLAW) is hosting a U.S. tour of two Iraqi labor leaders, providing people in this country a civilians-eye view of the Iraq war. On Tuesday June 12, these two impressive unionists spoke in San Francisco at an event co-sponsored by USLAW, United for Peace and Justice and the American Friends Service Committee.

Below is an interview with Marxist author Alan Woods about the ongoing events in Venezuela.





You have openly expressed your admiration for President Chávez. However, you have said that you consider that the Bolivarian Revolution is "incomplete". What do you mean by this?

The Bolivarian Revolution is a revolution in the sense that Trotsky explained in The History of the Russian Revolution, that is, a situation in which the masses participate actively in politics and try to take their destiny into their own hands and change society from the bottom. But it is unfinished because it has not yet succeeded in expropriating totally the oligarchy and the old state apparatus remains more or less intact. As long as things continue like this, it cannot be said that the revolution is irreversible. President Chávez once compared it to the myth of Sisyphus, who was condemned to roll a heavy boulder to the top of a hill, at which point it always rolled back to the starting-point. The problem is that if this particular rock rolls backwards, it will crush a lot of people.

A brief re-examination of this missed opportunity in working class-based radical mass action in this part of the world...

The new issue (7.1) of ephemera: theory & politics in organization, entitled "immaterial and affective labor: explored," has just been published at  http://www.ephemeraweb.org. This latest special issue offers a critical engagement with the conceptual and political territory animated by the deployment of such ideas in the work of Hardt, Negri, Lazzarato, Virno and others, and follows previous explorations of class composition and politics in ephemera (for instance in the issues on 'the theory of the multitude' and 'writing: labour').

The articles from the first issue of 'Turbulence: Ideas for movement' are now available to read and download online at: www.turbulence.org.uk

On May 31, at 7:00 am, 150 police armed to the teeth invaded Cipla, a factory controlled by the workers, and "installed" an administrator appointed by the federal judge at the request of the INSS (Social Security). The management elected by the workers along with other selected workers were expelled or prevented from entering the plant. Armed terror has been imposed in the factory. One of the first measures taken by the administrator was to cover with a black canvas the plaque at the entrance of the factory which said: "CIPLA, company controlled by the workers."

A marvelous national and international compaign demanding the end of the intervention at Cipla was launched just a few hours after the Federal Police carried out their war operations. Messages began to arrive to the Lula government and the Minister of Justice, Tarso Genro, who is responsible for the Federal Police and Luis Marinho, Minister of Social Security, from whose ministry the request for the intervention in Cipla came. Messages were also sent to the Minister of Labour and Employment, Carlos Lupi. This strong and immediate reaction gave us the strength and energy to organize the resistance against these riduculous events.

Down With Police Terror Against the Anti-G8 Demonstrators!
For Mass Protests Against State Terror Based on the Social Power of the Working Class!
Down With the Witchhunt Against the “Black Block”!

Spartakist Leaflet - see attached PDF files: statement in English, German and French and Spartakist Jugend (Young Spartacus) statement from 27 May 2007

A peaceful mass demonstration of an estimated 80,000 participants turned into a grim battle between thousands of heavily armed police and demonstrators—including provocative members of the “black bloc” of anarchists—on late Saturday afternoon in the northern German port city of Rostock.

The non-renewal of the broadcasting licence to private TV station RCTV in Venezuela has been used by the Venezuelan oligarchy and imperialism to unleash the coup-plotting campaign they were unable to launch at the time of the December 3rd elections.

Despite all the hue and cry over "freedom of expression" the real aim of the oligarchy in Venezuela is to create a situation of chaos, violence and confusion, and if they can, get someone killed in one of the demonstrations. This would allow them to create a favourable international climate and launch an open offensive against the Venezuelan revolution with a combination of the following methods: military coup, assassination of Chávez, imperialist intervention.

Elección Porteña 2007: Un gran desafío a la izquierda -
Buenos Aires - Argentina

A view from the outside is far more revealing than the myopia offered from within. We are all apt to overlook the elephant for its trunk or ears when we are drawn too near a subject/object. In such a distorted world teacup ‘storms’ appear as hurricanes; the loss of perspective is the precursor to the loss of FREEDOM as the scope narrows, so our consciousness. Few in Oz seem to be aware that the opposition Labor party no longer has an ideological platform, the values of the traditional Australian Labor Party have been jettisoned for short-term gain, opportunism and expediency!

Perhaps someone with one of those new computer programs developed by Bill Gates could calculate the resources being used for war expenses at the cost of education, healthcare and culture for humanity...

Make the G8 Precarious, Flexi-Fight the New World Order
Superfluous and Superheroes of the World: Unite and Take Over!

From 6-8 June, together with thousands of others, as part of the Block G8
campaign, we will cut the G8 Summit in Heiligendamm off from its
infrastructure. The other world – the one we say is possible – will, once
again, be revealed as already here.

With the absolutizing of profit maximization and its merciless amorality, the neoliberal elites pursue a ruthless dehuamnization of workers by reducing them to a cost factor to be lowered. With the dehumanization of their victims, they dehumanize themselves and rob themselves of real human acknowledgment.

“The youth are waiting, day after day. They wait for their time; as do the workers, even the old. They all wait, those who are discontented and those who reflect. They are waiting for a force to arise, something they will be part of; a kind of new international that will not make the same mistakes as the previous ones. They wait for a chance to get rid of the past once and for all – for something new to begin.

WE HAVE BEGUN.”

New legislation in Washington D.C., under the acronym H.O.P.E. – short for “ the Haitian Hemispheric Opportunity through Partnership Encouragement Act,” has the goal of promoting the garment industry in Haiti. But the legislation falls noticeably short in protecting labor rights or promoting long-term sustainable economic development that will benefit the poor as well as the rich.