19 October 2014
The so-called “pro-democracy” demonstrators seeking to occupy central areas of Hong Kong are for the return of Hong Kong as an independent capitalist statelet, severed from mainland China.
We are told that we have to attack Syria in order to defeat the Islamic State (IS). The peoples of the Middle East will have to deal with their own backward feudal despots.
Now that the referendum is over, the focus of the media has leapfrogged the coming months and focused on the general election. Nothing else is held to be relevant.
The government is sponsoring a series of television adverts against slavery in Britain. The domestic servant, the farm hands, the sweat shop labourers, the sex worker etc. The great unsaid, but obvious from the presentations, is that these modern-day slaves are migrant workers.
This October’s TUC national demo will have a single concrete demand: Britain Needs a Pay Rise. It's a welcome change from vague calls such as the March for the Alternative.
Once again the war drums are beating over Iraq. This time we are told we have to go into battle abroad in order to prevent ISIS waging war on the streets of Britain, or to save the Yazidis.
Yet again Israel’s military terrorises Gaza. Why does political progress remain so far out of reach in this pivotal part of the Middle East?
NATO military exercises including British troops are due to take place in Ukraine in July. This is a dangerous move that will inevitably escalate an already tense situation.
Sometimes it seems as if opposition to capitalism remains just that – opposition. Are we so mired in the trenches that we cannot lift our sights and think not about opposing their plans but proposing our own?
Karl Marx famously wrote that history repeats itself – the first time as tragedy, then as farce. That sums up the contortions that the US is twisting itself into over Iraq, shabbily abetted by Cameron.
This year will see a host of elections. Can the working class could use them to advance our interests? Or is there a better way?
