I'M WRITING to you today on behalf of SOTWOI (ELS). The initials stand for Supporters Of The War On Iraq (Ex-Lefties Section), a group with some very prominent members. You'll remember that John Reid was once in the Communist Party, Christopher Hitchens and Stephen Byers used to describe themselves as International Socialists and David Aaronovitch is used to describing himself.
TONY BLAIR'S shambolic surrender to the demands for a referendum on the draft European Constitution is the clearest sign yet that his premiership is close to collapse. When Blair came to office, he was distinguished from most of his predecessors by his enthusiasm for the European Union (EU).
From the Victorian era till the 1960s gays and lesbians were persecuted by the state. Police officers regularly entrapped and arrested gay men. In that repressive climate, most gays and lesbians hid their sexual orientation. Over the last three decades the worst legal restrictions and discriminations have ended. The level of popular prejudice against gays and lesbians is much reduced. Today every major TV and radio soap has gay or lesbian storylines, with sympathetic characters.
\"23 April-St George's Day-should be carved on the heart of every Englishman.\" These are the words of Andrew Rosindell, the Conservative MP for Romford-someone who pops up on numerous TV programmes championing St George's Day. Rosindell likes to present himself as part of a new young generation, a man who can both be \"cosmopolitan\" in his outlook and at the same time proud to be English. But don't be deceived by appearances.
"We hold these truths to be self evident. All men are created equal." So declares the American Declaration of Independence. Half the world replies yes, but what about women? Formal equality was part of the ideology of early capitalism. More importantly, the birth of the modern socialist movement made women's equality a feature of all progressive thought.
AS I'M sure Socialist Worker readers are aware, there has been only one story of importance in the British press over the last few weeks. The fighting has intensified, the partnership is weakening, and the situation is rapidly deteriorating. Yes, of course, it is the highly significant story of the relationship between Posh and Becks.
The Russian Revolution of October 1917 was greeted across the world with enormous popular enthusiasm. In the midst of the bloody slaughter of the First World War the workers' and soldiers' councils had taken control of the country. The new soviet government took Russia out of the war, instituting far-reaching reforms. Factory committees took over enterprises. The peasants won the land. Legislation gave women the most advanced freedoms anywhere in the world.
AILEEN WUORNOS was executed by lethal injection in October 2002. She was only the second woman to be executed in Florida since the American Civil War. Aileen had killed six men. She was hailed as the US's first women serial killer and there's nothing the media loves more than a mass murderer, and if she is a blonde prostitute with a lesbian lover then just watch the headlines flow. Police officers involved in her case were said to be negotiating book and movie deals about her case before she was even arrested.
THE HEADLINE news in France's regional elections was that there was a big swing away from the ruling right to the parties of the "plural left"-the Socialists, Communists, and Greens. But, for the revolutionary left, the story was a different one.
There are two fundamental reasons why socialism has to be international. Both rise from the nature of capitalism. The first is very simple and material. One of capitalism's historic achievements has been the formation of a world market. If we think about our own everyday lives, it is immediately apparent that we depend on the products of the world.
OF ALL the great phrases that our leaders have come up with over the years, surely the "war on terror" has to be their finest. How to name wars is something that gives important work to politicians, historians and journalists.
TONY BLAIR sought yet again to justify the conquest of Iraq in a recent speech. He harked back to what he plainly regards as an earlier triumph, NATO's 1999 war against Yugoslavia. Blair cited this as a precedent for the Anglo-American attack on Iraq. Even "before September 11", he explained, "the world's view of the justification of military action had been changing. The only clear case in international relations for armed intervention had been self defence... But the notion of intervening on humanitarian grounds had been gaining currency."
