Solidarity 132, 14 May 2008

Through the eyes of a girl

Persepolis is a story of the bravery of a young Iranian girl as she learns and comes to understand the politics of her nation, and the various factions that have fought to rule over it through history. It is also a story of individual growth, and interference in that growth from political oppression and restraint. The main protagonist, Marjane, begins the story as a child secretly devoted to God and the idea she can become a prophet, despite her unbelieving Marxist parents. (There is some conversation between God and Marx later in the film which serves as comic interlude.) Later Marjane the...

Revolutionary rock stars?

Peter Doggett’s book recalls in detail (over 525 pages) the uneasy relationship between rock stars, political activists and the “counter–culture” between 1965 and 1972. His raison d’etre for the book: “In an era when Bono, the hand in glove darling of the global political establishment and Bruce Springsteen, the personification of cosy liberalism, are revered as rock and pop icons, its timely to be reminded of an era when artists were prepared to court unpopularity (and worse) for their ideals.” Dogget also attacks some of the myths that have been created by the artists themselves about this...

Bloodless

Tony Stark is a millionaire weapons designer who decides to ensure his weapons never fall into the wrong hands — but only after being captured by terrorists in Afghanistan using them! The fact that he does so by designing his most destructive weapon yet presents him with predictable problems by the end of the film. Nevertheless rest assured that he triumphs over adversity by killing a large number of anonymous swarthy bad guys in spectacular set pieces. Despite his fight against the Taliban there is surprisingly little politics in Iron Man. Terrorists function as generic evil doers with...

My '68: From observer to participant

Like many teenagers in 1968, my political education was as an observer for many years of a number of major struggles throughout the world. The civil rights movement in the US; the events in China, which were mystifying as portrayed by the media and explained meaningfully by no-one, and the horrors of the US war in Vietnam. The first half of 1968 started out again as another of watching, but this time the intensity of the experience was ratcheted up by the Prague spring of “Socialism with a Human Face”, the Tet Offensive in Vietnam and most excitingly the May-June events in France. A friend and...

Fight Brown to fight the BNP

The British National Party has made a small but significant advance in May’s local and London Assembly elections. The BNP now have: • A member on the 25 person Greater London Assembly; • Ten new councillors across the country. Even though this is not as many as they claimed they would get, it is a third year of increased BNP presence in local government; • New councillors in Stoke, Rotherham and many other urban areas; • A firmer toe-hold in places like Barnsley where they came second in seven wards. In many areas where they didn’t get elected there are reports of increased and sustained BNP...

Marxists on the Capitalist Crisis: 4. Simon Mohun - An era of rampant inequality:

This is an odd sort of crisis for a Marxist. If you had read Marxist crisis theory at a fairly abstract level, I think you would be a bit puzzled by this crisis. It’s not about falling rates of profit. Profit rates have been rising. It’s not about a profit squeeze. It’s not the case that wages have been squeezing profits. In terms of the classical parameters of Marxian discussion, we come back to disproportionality. That seems to fit what has been going on a bit better. More generally one would say from a Marxian point of view that this crisis is the anarchy of the market showing itself in a...

The Fight For a Workers’ Parliament: The Revolutionary Chartists

The General Convention of the Industrious Classes opened in London on 4 February 1839, riding high on a wave of popular unrest and unparalleled mass mobilisations. London Democrat William Cardo wrote that the “Parliament of the House of Lords and Commons would soon be assembled… and at the same time another Parliament, the People’s Parliament would assemble… there would be the spirit of the English people”. Historians may point to the moderate artisans of the London Working Men’s Association as the authors of the Charter, or the middle-class radicals of the Birmingham Political Union as having...

Defend a woman’s right to choose!

On Tuesday 20 May MPs will debate and vote on anti-choice amendments to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill. The Bill includes such things as provision for research on different types of embryos. It is being used to attack abortion rights, to cut the current 24 week time limit to 20 or even 13 weeks! The fight against these attacks needs to be seen as central to women’s liberation and class struggle. Since 1967, when women won limited abortion rights, we have had to constantly defend them. The campaign against the Alton Bill is an interesting comparison to our current fight. In 1987...

Solidarity 3/132, 14 May 2008

Current Edition online articles

Page 1: Millions Starve. Business make record profits
Page 2: "We want regularisation"
Page 3: We still stand for two states
Page 4: Unions roundup
Page 5: Blair's children, Inflation at 10% for low paid
Page 6: US tries to "harden" Iraqi army
Page 7: Zimbabwe
Page 8-9: Iraq debate, AWL conference report
Page 10: Innuendo in the contract
Page 11: Through the eyes of a girl
Page 12: Resisting fascism
Page 13: "An era of rampant inequality"
Page 14-15: A workers' parliament
Page 16: Defend a woman's right to choose

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