Blogs

A short post on the reactions to the Commons vote on Syria and the illusions of parliamentary democracy.

Until this year, late summer newspapers were always filled with articles about burglaries. “Family returns from holiday and finds home emptied by thieves” was a typical headline. This year, though, it has been factories emptied, and those sneaking in during the night to take away machinery have been the managers themselves.

Workers of the Firem Factory near Modena should take issue with the government of Poland. This is because their jobs have been moved here – to Oława where their ex-boss, Fabrizio Pedroni, will receive tax exemptions and other aid for creating jobs in Poland.

We are appealing for our users to please donate to us to cover the £180 cost of the purchase of rare materials by Solidarity to digitise them.

This elegy to the gains for ordinary people made in the UK after 1945 – now largely clawed back – fails to inspire due to its lack of analysis of what went wrong.

Drawing on his experiences in the “cauldron of resistance” of Oakland, CA, George Ciccariello-Maher speaks on the relations between organizing in universities and struggles against police and prisons. Against academics’ use of alibis, such as ‘changing the world by teaching,’ to legitimize anything they do as a contribution to radical movements, he calls for academics to more clearly distinguish between their jobs and their political work.

Reflecting on the building occupations at UC Santa Cruz in 2009-2010 and cross-pollination between student and worker struggles, Don Kingsbury highlights the need to excavate and reanimate histories of radical movements. Under the conditions of academic precarity, and against the neoliberal privatization of the general intellect, Don calls for turning communities of necessity into communities of resistance.

“Minister Bonino, what has to happen in Egypt in order to halt the export of weapons from Italy?” That sums up a parliamentary question asked by OPAL, an association monitoring weapons production in Italy and Italian security policies.

A short response to "things lib-communists say that you hate hearing all the time", on being accused of sexism, and in jokes.

On the developments in Egypt, on the framework in which people talk about the developments, and a bit on that attitude to take.

With's Chomsky's appearance on a 'skeptic' podcast and in light of the recent comments by Dawkins and the reaction to them, including JK's blog post, it got me thinking about the relationship, or lack thereof, between 'scepticism', 'new atheism' and radical politics. Here's some garbled thoughts.

Noam Chomsky recently appeared on the Skeptically Speaking podcast to discuss the evolution of language. This got me thinking about the relationship, or lack thereof, between 'scepticism', 'new atheism' and radical politics which will follow in another blog post.

AWW #2 on struggles in the health sector...

Announcement of a forthcoming book titled Lines of Work: Stories of Jobs and Resistance, from Recomposition and Black Cat Press.

Rail fares increase every year but this time a coalition of leftists, trade unionists and passenger groups took the opportunity to launch a campaign calling for the re-nationalisation of Britain's rail network.

Some quick comments on the latest 'shit Dawkins says on Twitter' row.

During this years' Stockholm Pride, Swedish police attacked and manhandled queers protesting against the fact that cops get to have their own bloc in the Pride parade despite their continous involvement in violent deportations of queer refugees, hunting down of irregular migrants, as well as the fact that their presence make queer people feel unsafe at their own event.

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Announcement about some new pamphlets from Thoughtcrime Ink