Politics

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Capitalism doesn’t have a handbrake

A further report from Maria Maza in Spain. Things are getting more and more difficult as days pass by. We are seeing the Government implementing measure after measure as events are coming. No emergency protocol whatsoever on any western country, but witnessing it in my own country is heartbreaking. To give them their due, they’ve been ruling for just two or three months, and a considerable number of the ministers had no previous experience on governing and face a corrosive campaign of hate and lies from the racist and authoritarian far-right. Plus this is overwhelming to all countries. Some of…

Coronavirus

By Andrew Burgin

The pandemic, the working class and the left

The Coronavirus pandemic is accelerating across the world. Every few days the scope and scale of the disease is increasing. Hundreds of thousands of people are being infected, many thousands have already died and many tens of thousands will die. In China where the outbreak was first identified, it has been brought under control but elsewhere it is spreading rapidly. In its wake the virus is transforming everyday life. The main way to fight it is self-isolation and social distancing. No longer can people socialise as they did. Grandparents cannot help look after their grandkids. The schools are shut. The…

Coronavirus

By Public Reading Rooms

Lessons from the onset of the Covid-19 crisis in Greece

This is an important report from Panagiotis Georgakopoulos , head of the intensive care unit at the hospital of Patra for many years. Panagiotis was also head of the national organisation of public health prevention policies during the Syriza government. Starting from Achaia region… The first case of Covid-19 infection in Greece was identified at the end of February and concerned a young woman from Thessaloniki who had recently traveled to Milan, Italy. The second case of Covid-19 infection involved a 66-year-old man, who had recently traveled to Israel and Egypt, and firstly visited a private doctor in Amaliada city,…

Coronavirus

By Public Reading Rooms

Why we need to requisition property to address the pandemic

Coronavirus

By Public Reading Rooms

Coronavirus and community activism

How can we centre community organising and mutual aid in response to coronavirus? by Jonathan Neale Medicare protest outside Hahnemann Hospital in Philadelphia. Image rights: Holly Otterbein, Twitter. Some of the environmentalists and leftists I know tell me not to be fooled by the mainstream hype about covid-19. Others are pleased that the lockout in China has reduced pollution. Some say the real issue is not the disease, it’s racism. I want to suggest a different way of responding to epidemics. Communities I was an HIV counsellor in the UK between 1988 and 1994, before we had the retroviral…

John Wight

By Public Reading Rooms

How far will corporate America go to stop Bernie Sanders?

In words commonly, if erroneously, attributed to American novelist and prominent 1930s socialist Sinclair Lewis, we are told that ‘When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross’. Though no serious person would attempt to equate the current Trump administration with the goose-stepping fascism of Sinclair Lewis’s era, the aforementioned quote makes the salient point that cultural, historical and national specificities dictate what fascism looks, sounds and operates like in a particular country in any given period. On the scale of fascist tendencies, we live in a worrying time wherein authoritarian and ethno-nationalist…

Anti-Semitism

By Public Reading Rooms

A lesson in the ruthlessness of the British ruling class

John Wight

By Public Reading Rooms

Sinn Fein’s historic victory in Ireland is a tribute to Sands, McGuinness and Adams

In his classic volume of prison letters, Soledad Brother, George Jackson writes that ‘Patience has its limits. Take it too far and it’s cowardice.’ While no one familiar with the life of George Jackson would normally dare contradict the kind of wisdom acquired through extreme adversity and hard struggle, the historic victory of Sinn Fein in the 2020 Irish general election suggests that patience can in politics be more courageous than impatience in pursuit of a people’s and nation’s liberation. The torturous and tragic history of Ireland is inextricably linked to the crimes of British colonialism and empire. It’s partition…

Anti-Semitism

By Andrew Burgin and Kate Hudson

Election defeat: what happened and what next?

Global anti-austerity upsurge

By Phil Hearse

Rebellion and Reaction – Worldwide anti-austerity upsurge met with brutal repression

Across the globe workers, indigenous people and youth are taking to the streets to protest against austerity, corruption, dictatorship and climate extinction – despite the setback of electoral victories by the hard right. How can we understand these movements, and what political obstacles do they face?

Julian Assange