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The latest news and analysis from The Communist, alongside reports of our activity. For Marxist theory and history, click here.

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Race and Class: No lie can live forever

Today marks 40 years since the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther
King Jr., shot in the face on the 2nd floor balcony of the Lorraine
Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. James Earl Ray was imprisoned for the
assassination, though never granted a trial for his murder. Given the
US government’s targeting of radicalised black leaders at this time,
whoever pulled the trigger did the state’s dirty work for them. The
King family never accepted Ray was responsible.

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Report: Socialist Youth Network conference 2008

On Saturday the 29th of March the Socialist Youth Network
(SYN) held its 3rd annual conference at the ULU building near
Euston. The Socialist Youth Network is the youth wing of the Labour Representation Committee (LRC), the left wing of the Labour Party led by John McDonnell. Youth comrades from Socialist Appeal attended the meeting reported here.

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Boris the Menace

It is easy to write off Boris Johnson as a buffoon. There is
a real danger he will be running London, a city of 7½ million people in a
couple of months time. Make sure Johnson is not made London’s Mayor in the May
1st elections. As Compass points out, “his buffoonery conceals a
hard line right wing set of views – a type of Norman Tebbitt in clown’s
uniform. The quotes below are taken from their pamphlet Boris Johnson – a man of the Tory hard right.

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A Short history of Inflation

The nineteenth century was an era of price
stability. It was also the age of the gold standard. Inflation can have many
triggers, but it always involves an increase in money emissions at some point
in order to give expression to higher prices. It is difficult to increase the
money supply quickly if you have to mine precious metals, so runaway inflation
just didn’t happen back then. The government can’t really control inflation.
Now it’s back!

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How to deal with hecklers

At a meeting in London on 13th March a couple of
hecklers were attacking John McDonnell for being a member of the Labour Party.
Veteran trade unionist Harry Whittaker answered them in his typically
forthright Scottish manner. He said: “What would a working man do if he had
spent years building himself a house only to find it had become infested by
rats? Would he give up his home and move elsewhere, leaving the house
completely in the control of the rats? Of course not! He would never give in to
the rats; he would fight them and he would not rest until he had rid his house
of the last vestige of this verminous infestation. And this is exactly the same
course of action which the true socialist must take with the House of
Labour."

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Using Torture to Stop Terror

Imagine you have a known terrorist in your custody. He holds
the information that could be used to disarm a bomb. With this information you
can save the lives of thousands, perhaps millions of innocent people. But he
will not give you the information. What do you do?

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Bear Stearns – down and out

World stock markets are still reeling from yet another shock to the
system brought on by the so-called credit crunch that has enveloped capitalist
financial markets since last summer. The latest shock was the biggest yet. Late on Sunday night, 16 March, the US
Federal Reserve Bank announced that Bear Stearns, America’s fifth-largest investment
bank, was bust.

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“Hurrah for Capitalism!”: Schools for Aspiring Millionaire Fools

Margaret Thatcher was recently asked what she regarded as
her legacy. She replied with a smile, “Tony Blair”.
As world capitalism lurches into a deepening economic crisis
and world stock markets tumble, members of the Brown government, the continuers
of Blairism and New Labour, are more eager than ever to extol the virtues of millionaire
capitalism.

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