Blogs

There is an ever-growing stream of media commentary on the Grenfell fire, increasing daily as the public enquiry unfolds. There are some elements in the media with the goal of obscuring or excusing the plain facts as part of a pre-emptive defence manoeuvre to protect those most implicated in what caused the fire and the 72 deaths. That they feel the need to use such distortions to defend the Grenfell landlords and those who ordered and oversaw the Grenfell refurbishment that fitted the lethal cladding only increases the suggestion of a general doubt on all sides about their innocence.

9 November is an auspicious date in the German historical calendar. 80 years ago this was the anniversary of Kristallnacht (the Night of Broken Glass) when synagogues were burned and 10,000 Jewish males were marched to concentration camps. It was the first step on the road to the genocide of millions. 28 years ago it was the day that the GDR authorities announced the dismantling of the Berlin Wall. However, a century ago it was also the date when the Kaiser announced his abdication in the face of a workers’ revolution which had begun with mutinies in Kiel before spreading across Germany.

The Polish nationalism of today is a direct continuation and consequence of the nationalism which crushed the workers’ movement in years 1918-23.

Why your vote is completely irrelevant.

The 100th anniversary of the Armistice, which we are told put a stop to the first world war, happens to coincide with remembrance Sunday, or Poppy Day. So we’re in for a treat. On top of poppy-wearing – now almost de rigueur – and two minute silences in the most improbable places, there are some smashing events in store. While local volunteers polish up war memorials, craft red poppy memorabilia, there are all sorts of state-sponsored celebrations, to mark the 11th hour of the eleventh day, in November 1918 when “the guns fell silent”.

In the media workers are usually portrayed as people who don’t care about ‘the environment’ – we see mining workers defending mining jobs or car workers demonstrating to keep car plants open. We forget that working class people tend to have much less of a choice to ‘act environmentally friendly’ – we lack the financial means to buy electric cars, organic food or hemp-based underwear - and there often is not much of a choice when it comes to jobs and working class communities that have formed around them.

How the failure of the leftist Pink Tide movement lead to the right's victory in Brazil.

Capitalism is killing the planet. The answer should be staring every environmentalist in the face: get rid of capitalism!

With this translation we begin the second volume of our series of translations from the review Kommunist, using the French version published by the Collectif d’édition smolny (www.collectif-smolny.org). As many will know the review Kommunist was the brainchild of the “proletarian communists”, or “left communists” as Lenin dubbed them, inside the Bolshevik Party in the spring of 1918. The original issue around which they were formed was opposition to the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (March 1918) but as readers of our earlier translations will know they also highlighted their disquiet with certain developments inside Russia.

Are trade union bureaucrats correct in saying Marx believed an over-supply of labour depresses wages? We take a look at what Marx called "the absolute general law of capitalist accumulation" to discover if this is true.

For the past few years, but particularly in the aftermath of the 2016 US Presidential election, the theme of identity politics has dominated political discourse on both the left and the right. Countless books, articles, blogs and comments have been written on the subject, but we ourselves have dealt with it only in passing.

The government is currently carrying out a review of legal aid following a series of cuts that have been implemented over the last few years. There is a growing view that the cuts have gone too far and could be a false economy as well as undermining faith in the legal system. Whilst it is unlikely that the government will put any significant amount of cash back into the system, it will probably at least pay lip service to the importance of legal aid. This article considers some of the issues at stake.

Self-defence against bosses, migration police, racist scumbags and other enemies of the working-class doesn’t fall from the sky. Weekly drop-ins and individual support are first necessary steps - and they can be laborious. If you live in London and want to get involved in our west-London solidarity network or want to set up your own network, please get in touch.

Under the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Saudi’s policy has become more aggressive both against Iranian influence and Turkey’s and it is in this context that the fate of Jamal Khashoggi should be understood.

My notes on the UK IWW's organising summit in Sheffield.

“We will chase them out!” Alexander Gauland bawled straight after the entry of the Alternative für Deutschland (Alternative for Germany, AfD) to the Bundestag. It should be clear, at least after the racist riots in Chemnitz and Köthen, that this was no empty threat. The AfD’s rise has lent wings to the entire extreme right and is increasingly being translated into racially-motivated violence on the street.

On 12th October, the Financial Times (FT), described the Brexit situation as an "Unpredictable Muddle". We would not disagree.

The new populist “government of change” made up of the anti-European Five Star Movement and the racist Lega (The League, formerly the Lega Nord or Northern League) has begun to adopt some of the same empty rhetoric of the past. Their target is not much different from the fascist anti-semitism of the past. Whilst their main guns are today trained at the EU they also point to the nefarious activities of “financiers like Soros”. George Soros is of course the target of the anti-semitic campaign of Orbans in Hungary. According to these “populists” the problem is not capitalism but only some aspects of it.

An article for the upcoming issue of WorkersWildWest, a free working class paper from west London

The same-sex marriage plebiscite was an amazing victory against conservative forces in Australia. Yet most of the Left treat it as a horrible defeat. What's this all about and what impact does it have on radical politics in Australia? Also we chat about the alt-right in Australia. Living The Dream is an anticapitalist podcast from Brisbane host at The Word From Struggle Street.