A few comments on the winner of the 2006 so-called Nobel Prize for economics. A more obvious example of economics as ideology for the ruling class is hard to find!
Category: Uncategorized
One anarchist’s account of attending the British SWP’s Marxism 2001 event. Not a very pleasant experience, but it says a lot about the state of the British left and the politics of Leninism.
Monty Python meets the SWP… Inspired by attending Marxism 2001.
What the media really means when it comments on industrial action….
What do we say to people in the reformist parties? They can not (and should not) be ignored. We say look at the record of your party in government or to the Workers Party when you supported the 1981 minority Fianna Fail government. Look at what your party stands for. Look at the record of your party in the trade union bureaucracy. Look at the historical role reformist parties have played in other countries. Reformism has had it’s test and failed one hundred times.
Article from 1992 looking at the prospects for a growth in anarchism following the collapse of socialism. The tradition in which the anarchists stand is one that socialists need to identify with. For many on the left this will be a difficult process. They were weaned on a diet of slander when it came to anarchism, either being told that anarchists were police agents or that they were not real socialists at all and wanted a return to feudalism. We must resist the temptation to avoid this problem by going "beyond anarchism". The state has been the Achilles heel of 20th century socialism, it is not an issue to be fudged.
Categories
Legalise it
Article from 1994 arguing that possession of small amounts of all drugs should be de-criminalised. Anti- social drugs like heroin should be available on prescription from doctors at low cost to prevent junkies turning to crime to finance their habit. What is needed is a real debate on the control of the other drugs. It seems reasonable to say that the maximum of restrictions should be similar to those applying in relation to drink or tobacco and this should be medically based and enforced rather than state controlled.
There is a long tradition of personal autobiographies written by ageing activists in the anarchist movement about their experiences and motivations. This is the recently published autobiography of Albert Meltzer, a British anarchist whose life has taken him from the fights against Mosley and support for Spain in the 1930’s through fringe involvement in a plot to assassinate Hitler, the Cairo mutiny after WWII, supporting the Spanish resistance, to the Angry Brigade trials and fighting the National Front in the 1970’s.
The trial of the Colombia 3 has produced a frenzy of speculation in the Irish media about whether they are guilty or not, and how this might effect the ‘peace process’. What is all too lacking, however, is any background to Colombia itself. This is not too surprising. Andrew looks at the situation there and argues that it is the Colombian state that should be in the dock.
A review of an excellent new biography of Bakunin.