[Marxism] What's new at Links: Shorter work week, population, El Salvador, Lebowitz, Castro, S. Korea, Marta Harnecker, Tamils, Make Greed History, Mexico

[glparramatta]

What's new at Links: Shorter work week, population and climate, El 
Salvador, Michael Lebowitz, Castro, S. Korea, Marta Harnecker, Tamils, 
Make Greed History, Mexico

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    What's wrong with a 30-hour work week? <http://links.org.au/node/1077>

By *Don Fitz*
May 30, 2009 -- With millions of jobs lost during the first part of 
2009, who is calling for a shorter work week to spread the work around? 
In the US, the vehicle industry sets the pace for organised labour. The 
only discussion at the top levels of the United Auto Workers Union (UAW) 
is how quickly the gains won during the last 50 years can be given back. 
Does the UAW have no memory of the 1930s and 1940s when a shorter work 
week was at centre of organising demands?

    * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1077>


    Ten reasons why population control is not an answer to climate
    change <http://links.org.au/node/1076>

By* Simon Butler*
June 1, 2009 -- Climate change is the greatest challenge humanity has 
ever faced. The scientific evidence of the scale of the threat is 
overwhelming, compelling and frightening. Climate tipping points -- 
points which if crossed will lead to runaway global warming -- are being 
crossed now. A discussion has surfaced about whether population-control 
measures should be a key plank in the climate action movement's campaign 
arsenal. Below are 10 reasons why such a decision would hinder, rather 
than help, the necessary task of building a movement that can win.

    * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1076>


    El Salvador: The beginning of a new era -- and great challenges
    <http://links.org.au/node/1075>

By *Jay Hartling*
May 31, 2009 -- El Salvador -- On Monday, June 1, 2009 El Salvador will 
turn a new page in its history with the inauguration of the country´s 
first left government, joining the ranks of the majority of Latin 
America. Representing the Farabundo Marti para la Liberacion Nacional 
(FMLN, Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front) ), Mauricio Funes and 
Salvador Sanchez Ceren, president and vice-president elect, will face a 
national assembly in which the FMLN is outnumbered by more than 2:1. Out 
of a total of 84 seats, the FMLN only have 35. This will make broad 
sweeping changes difficult, but not impossible, and may force Funes to 
use the power of the presidential veto as a bargaining chip. It is 
important that those of us observing from a distance understand the 
complicated environment within which the new government will be operating.

    * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1075>


    Michael Lebowitz: '21st century socialism needs a 21st century
    Marxism' <http://links.org.au/node/1073>

/ /

May 23, 2009 -- *Michael Lebowitz* is a Canadian Marxist economist. He 
is the director of the "Transformative practice and human development" 
program at the Caracas-based left-wing think tank, the Centro 
Internacional Miranda. He is professor emeritus of economics at Simon 
Fraser University and author of /Build it Now: 21st Century Socialism/ 
and the 2004 Isaac Deutscher-prize winning /Beyond Capital: Marx's 
Political Economy of the Working Class/. *Christopher Kerr* spoke with 
Lebowitz about capitalism's crisis and the socialist alternative.

    * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1073>


    Fidel Castro's declarations of resistance
    <http://links.org.au/node/1074>

Review by *Alex Miller*
/The Declarations of Havana,
/by *Fidel Castro*, with an introduction by *Tariq Ali*,
Verso, 2008, 138 pages
May 22, 2009 -- As Cuba celebrates the 50th anniversary of the 
revolution that overthrew the US-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista in 
1959, it is fitting that three of the most famous documents relating to 
the struggle against Batista and the early days of the revolution are 
published together in a single volume. /The Declarations of Havana/ is 
part of Verso's new "revolutions" series.

    * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1074>


    South Korea: The legacy of the 1980 Kwangju uprising
    <http://links.org.au/node/1072>

On the weekend of May 15-18, 2009, the city of Kwangju, South Korea, 
held the Kwangju International Peace Forum to celebrate the struggle for 
democracy in South Korea and to support similar struggles elsewhere in 
Asia. *Christopher Kerr *of South Korea-based solidarity group 
Venceremos caught up with *George Katsiaficas* to discuss the legacy of 
the 1980 Kwangju uprising.

    * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1072>


    Marta Harnecker: Ideas for the struggle #3 -- To be at the service
    of popular movements, not displace them <http://links.org.au/node/1071>

[This is the third in a series of regular articles. *Click HERE for 
other articles in the series <http://links.org.au/taxonomy/term/368>*. 
Please return to /Links/ regularly read the next articles in the series.]
By *Marta Harnecker*
We have previously stated that politics is the art of constructing a 
social and political force capable of changing the balance of forces in 
order to make possible tomorrow that which today appears to be 
impossible. But, to be able to construct a social force it *is necessary 
for political* *organisations to demonstrate a great respect for 
grassroots movements; to contribute to their autonomous development, 
leaving behind all attempts at manipulation*. They must take as their 
starting point that they aren't the only ones with ideas and proposals 
and, on the contrary, grassroots movements have much to offer us, 
because through their daily struggles they have also learned things, 
discovered new paths, found solutions and invented methods which can be 
of great value.

    * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1071>


    Socialist Party of Malaysia condemns Sri Lanka's slaughter of Tamils
    <http://links.org.au/node/1070>

By the *Socialist Party of Malaysia* (Parti Sosialis Malaysia, PSM)
May 27, 2009 -- Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa declared victory 
over Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) as the last LTTE 
strongpoints crumbled. The victory is for no one but only the 
chauvinistic nationalist Sinhalese government led by Rajapaksa, which 
had launched a brutal, merciless and cold-blooded military offensive 
against the Tamil population for several months, inflicting nothing but 
death, destruction and misery. The victory proclaimed by Rajapaksa will 
not put an end to the conflict that has lasted for several decades, but 
signals a new assault on working people in Sri Lanka -- Tamil, Sinhalese 
and Muslim.

    * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1070>


    Scottish Socialist Party: `Make Greed History
    <http://links.org.au/node/1069>

    * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1069>


    `The only fight we lose is the one we abandon': Mexico's first
    openly lesbian MP on LGBT rights and people's power
    <http://links.org.au/node/1068>

By *Rachel Evans*
May 21, 2009 -- Coyacan, Mexico -- I interviewed Patria Jiménez in 
Coyacan's normally bustling markets. The onset of the swine flu crisis 
had emptied the streets and enforced a stiffness into Mexico's normally 
effusive greetings tradition. No kissing hello or shaking hands was 
encouraged. Jiménez ignored swine-flu protocol and greeted me warmly.
In 1997, Jiménez made history by being elected the first openly lesbian 
member of Mexico's Chamber of Deputies. Representing the Workers 
Revolutionary Party (PRT), which was in an alliance with the Democratic 
Revolution Party (PRD), Jiménez was also the first openly lesbian 
candidate to be elected in Latin America. She is standing again within a 
coalition, /Salvemos a México /(We Will Save Mexico), for the July 2009 
federal elections. She remains a member of the PRT.

    * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1068>


    Marta Harnecker: Ideas for the struggle #2 -- Convince, not impose
    <http://links.org.au/node/1067>

[This is the second in a series of regular articles. *Click HERE for 
other articles in the series <http://links.org.au/taxonomy/term/368>*. 
Please return to /Links/ regularly read the next articles in the series.]
By *Marta Harnecker*Popular movements and, more generally, the different 
social protagonists who today are engaged in the struggle against 
neoliberal globalisation both at the international and national levels 
*reject, with good reason, attitudes that aim to impose hegemony or 
control on movements*. They don't accept the steamroller policy that 
some political and social organisations tended to use that, taking 
advantage of their position of strength and monopolising political 
positions, attempt to manipulate the movement. *They don't accept the 
authoritarian imposition of a leadership from above*; they don't accept 
attempts made to lead movements by simply giving orders, no matter how 
correct they are.

    * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1067>

* * *
Links seeks to promote the international exchange of information, 
experience of struggle, theoretical analysis and views of political 
strategy and tactics within the international left. It is a forum for 
open and constructive dialogue between active socialists coming from 
different political traditions. It seeks to bring together those in the 
international left who are opposed to neoliberal economic and social 
policies. It aims to promote the renewal of the socialist movement in 
the wake of the collapse of the bureaucratic model of "actually existing 
socialism" in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

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