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Yesterday saw an impressive show of
solidarity for the Miami Five in front of the US embassy at London’s
Grosvenor Square. About five hundred people turned up to the annual
candlelit vigil organised by the Cuba Solidarity Campaign in Britain.
Hands Off Venezuela joined the protest, which marked the 10th
anniversary of the arrest of these five courageous men.
Supporters of Hands Off Venezuela intervened at the University of
Sussex’s freshers fair on 1st October. Sussex holds a long standing
anti-capitalist tradition which was reflected the enthusiasm of
students for the HOV stall.
On Wednesday, (October 1st,
2008) around one hundred people gathered in Bolívar Hall in
London to attend the launching of the English language edition of
Alan Woods’ latest book, Reformism or Revolution – A Reply to
Heinz Dieterich. The event was organised by Hands Off Venezuela
and Wellred,
the Marxist Publishing House. Comrade Rob Sewell, editor of Socialist
Appeal, chaired the meeting and introduced the two speakers,
Samuel Moncada, Venezuelan Ambassador and Alan Woods himself.
The Banks are going down like ninepins. It’s just over a year ago that
Northern Rock went bust. That was the first time we heard of the
‘credit crunch’ – the fact that banks were nervous of lending to each
other. Why? Because they realised the whole financial system was stood
on an unstable house of cards of credit. The pyramid had been built up
over years of mad speculation. They had got to the stage where they did
not know which bits of coloured paper in their vaults were sound and
which were non-performing toxins.
Supporters of Hands off Venezuela at Leeds
University intervened during the week long freshers’ fair at Leeds University
Union to promote solidarity between students here in Leeds and the workers and
youth in Venezuela who are struggling to create a new society based on
socialist principles. There was a great deal of interest in the university’s
HOV society and the programme of events that the comrades have lined up. The
society managed to sign up 13 members and collected more than 50 contact details
as well as selling books, pamphlets and HOV magazines.
Boris Johnson defends capitalism.
“Go on.
Admit it. You don’t feel altogether sorry for those bankers, do you? When you
read about the collapsing pillars of the temples of mammon, you don’t feel the
tears beginning to prick the corner of your eyes.
“When you
read that the masters and mistresses of the Universe are being expelled from
their glass palaces, ferrying their possessions in cardboard boxes, you can’t
quite find it in you, somehow, to mourn…”
Our
lives, those of our children, our health and living are subjected to the whims
of the gambling table, otherwise known as the ‘world financial system’. In what
way can betting on the prices of stock and shares benefit humankind? Rather, it
inevitably leads, at some stage, to crisis, as the blind bets get called in.
Now,
with the crisis of the capitalist system unfolding, the poverty, hunger and
homelessness experienced by some sections of working class people is spreading
to wider and wider layers. This is initially being expressed in foreclosures on
home loans and an increase in homelessness.
Bradford
& Bingley has finally been put out of its misery. After months of
cliff-hanging the government has been forced to nationalise the bank. In
many respects the ‘rescue’ plan is a clone of the $700bn Paulson plan being
pushed through in the USA. The basic idea is that the good stuff is sold off to
the private sector while the taxpayer is lumbered with the bad debts, the
toxins. Socialism for the rich and the rigours of free enterprise for the rest
of us!
Supporters of the Hands Off Venezuela
Campaign in Edinburgh held a stall at the two day long Societies’ Fair at
Edinburgh University.
The
comrades were hoping to highlight the gains of the Venezuelan revolution and to
draw attention to recent events in Bolivia as well as to restart the lapsed HOV
society at the university.
Last week US Treasury Secretary Henry
Paulson unveiled a dramatic plan to arrest the present financial crisis and
prevent future economic catastrophe. It is to cost $700bn.
It sounds like a breathtaking break from
neo-liberal philosophy. It’s not really. Neo-liberalism was always a giant lie.
Homeless people don’t matter. People in danger of losing their jobs in a
recession don’t matter. But, when it comes to banks and billionaires,
self-reliance is for the birds. These people are hapless bums.
Eleanor Marx was the youngest daughter of Karl Marx. But her place in history isn’t because of her name and who she was related to. Her work, commitment to the cause and self sacrifice earned her that place in her own right.
“I like
thieves. Some of my best friends are thieves. Why, just last week we had the
president of the bank over for dinner.” W.C. Fields.
The
capitalist system is in the throes of the worse financial crisis since the
Great Depression. This is the view not only of the billionaire George Soros,
but also of the International Monetary Fund, the custodian of the capitalist
system, and all the serious capitalist commentators.