"The Workers’ Party (PT), to which we gave the best years of our lives, is dead. Its very raison d’etre lies buried."Heloisa HelenaBrazilian senator and leader of the Party of Socialism and Liberty (P-Sol)
Latin America is in the vanguard of the fight against neo-liberalism. The Brazilian Party of Socialism and Liberty (P-Sol) has put itself at the heart of the creation of a new, global radical left. Recently it organised an international seminar in Rio de Janeiro that brought together socialists from across Latin America, North America and Europe.
Sao Paulo saw a demonstration of 6,000 people organised by the main trade union federation, the landless movement, and the national union of students. All are closely linked to Lula and the PT. While the marchers opposed any attempts by the right to topple Lula they also attacked corruption and the government’s neo-liberal policies.
John Holloway and other writers known as autonomists have exerted a powerful influence on the anti-capitalist movement. Holloway’s main argument, expressed in books such as Change the World Without Taking Power, is that "you cannot build a society of non-power relations by conquering power".
In the spring of 1993 South African photojournalist Kevin Carter was covering the famine in Sudan. While visiting a feeding station, a starving child crawling through the dust caught his eye. Behind the child stalked a large vulture.
At the beginning of the last century the American writer Mark Twain wrote a satire about Belgium’s King Leopold II, the colonial ruler of the Congo.
The unofficial action by British Airways (BA) airside workers — baggage handlers, bus drivers and check in staff — is significant for all those with a vested interest in militant trade unionism. It exposes the current weakness of official union structures and culture.
Philosophy is usually presented as something beyond the ken of everyday folk. It is seen as timeless truths handed down by great men.
In 1986 tens of thousands of Filipinos demonstrated on a busy thoroughfare in the Philippine capital of Manila, in an event that soon became known as the "people power revolution". The mass protests ended over 20 years of corrupt and brutal dictatorship under Ferdinand Marcos, restoring liberal democracy to the country.
The Philippine ruling class is facing a very real problem. Every section of it is hungry for the implementation of savage neo-liberal measures — but nobody is at all sure who can get away with forcing them through.
The Lone Ranger and Tonto are trapped on the edge of a cliff by angry Native Americans. The Lone Ranger turns to Tonto and says, "Looks like we’re surrounded, Tonto." Tonto replies, "What do you mean ‘we’, paleface?"
Summarily deporting opponents, jailing people for what they are held to have said and raising the spectre of treason are not new.
