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Savage Capitalism:the Ecosocialist Alternative
SR Books
Socialist Resistance's publishing arm - SR Books
Further information at resistancebooks
New books defend Marxism
Permanent Revolution & Results and Prospects - Leon Trotsky
Foundations of Christianity - Karl Kautsky
Take the Power to change the world - Phil Hearse
Middle East: war, imperialism, and ecology - Sixty years of resistance - Roland Rance & Terry Conway
Ecosocialism or Barbarism - Jane Kelly & Shelia Malone
Cuba: Beyond the Crossroads - Ron Ridenour
It’s never too late to love or rebel - Celia Hart
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Socialist Resistance and Respect Renewal
The resources used to produce the monthly Socialist Resistance newspaper are being used to support the launch of the monthly paper announced at the Respect Renewal conference. Socialist Resistance
agreed to make the offer at a joint meeting of its editorial board and
steering committee in early November which was open to all our members.
The proposal was agreed unanimously, and was accepted by the Respect
Renewal conference . The first issue of Respect’s paper will be on sale
in December.
Socialist Resistance’s support will be
reflected through financial support, the use of our publishing systems,
volunteer labour, and by the participation of SR’s editorial team in producing the new paper.
Our successful pamphlet on the crisis in Respect
will be expanded, and published as part of a series of books intended
for publication over the next months. We will also continue to hold
major public events based on themes of interest to our readers such as
our day schools on the Middle East, Ecosocialism and Latin America .
Details of the next one will shortly be available.
Supporters of Socialist Resistance will continue to hold monthly political public meetings on a wide range of international and British topics.
A
national meeting of our members in early 2008 will review our ongoing
ecosocialism project and decide on a proposal to relaunch SR as a magazine. That will be the subject of further discussion over the coming months. Until Socialist Resistance
is relaunched, our subscribers can choose whether to take the new paper
instead, to extend their subscription period, or for a refund to be
either paid to them or donated to Respect Renewal.
The new Respect paper is already set to have a much wider base of human and financial support than the monthly Socialist Resistance.
The new paper will deepen our five-year struggle to build a broad and
democratic ecosocialist party that can give a voice to those
effectively disenfranchised by New Labour’s right-wing agenda.
Socialist Resistance
has demonstrated the seriousness of its commitment to building Respect
over a number of years. Our decision to make our paper available to
Respect is further proof of this. We are equally committed to helping
develop a strong, vibrant ecosocialist current inside Respect and the
rest of the British Labour Movement and our continuing activity will
remain dedicated to this aims.
Respect Renewal conference
Respect, the anti-capitalist left party in
England
and
Wales
, has split. Last weekend its two factions held separate conferences.
We report from the Respect Renewal conference:
Respect Renewal is underway
Liam Mac Uaid
Supporters of Socialist Resistance, attended the Respect Renewal
conference. This was the conference which began to organise the
majority of non SWP Respect supporters.
Balance Sheet of the Respect Renewal launch conference
Nick Wrack
The Respect Renewal Conference was a stunning success. It took place on
Saturday 17 November 2007. Notification of the conference had first
gone out only on Saturday 3 November. In the intervening two weeks hard
work by a team of volunteers ensured a wonderfully uplifting day.
Called at just two week’s notice it could have been a desultory affair.
Given that it came after an acrimonious split in Respect it could have
been rather depressing. Instead, it was a lively, if at times
unpredictable, event attended by over 350 people.
Latest on Respect....
The end of Respect as a broad coalition
Respect as we have known it for the last four years as an alliance principally between the SWP and George Galloway is over.
Following the decision of the SWP central committee last Wednesday that
the Respect conference would go ahead as planned and unchanged in
other words on a completely undemocratic basis nineteen members of
the non-SWP part of the National Council and a number of Respect
councillors have issued a call for an alternative conference that same
day, November 17,on the theme of Renew Respect. Work is going ahead to
build it on the broadest basis possible.
It is a remarkable situation. The SWP leadership have managed to
alienate themselves from virtually all of the active non-SWP members of
the national council, including Linda Smith National Chair, Salma
Yaqoob National Vice-Chair, Victoria Brittain, George Galloway, Jerry
Hicks, Ken Loach, Abjol Miah the leader of Respect on Tower Hamlets
Council, Yvonne Ridley, and Nick Wrack - the first national chair of
Respect and a member of the SWP when this debate started.
The way the crisis escalated is clear enough. It was the SWP’s
disastrous, and hysterical, reaction to George Galloway’s letter to the
national council at the end of August which determined the course of
events.
This raised some home truths about the development of Respect, which
some of us had been raising for a long time, and made some modest
proposals towards greater plurality. The letter was supportable but did
not go far enough.
The letter certainly did not represent a crisis: in fact it was an
opportunity. It could have opened up an over-due and fruitful
discussion about the development of Respect as a more inclusive
organisation with a greater national presence.
Beyond fake ‘unity’: thinking outside the box of a polarised Respect
As
events in Respect have spiralled downwards into crisis, various calls
for unity have been raised which have a certain superficial attraction.
Wouldn’t it be better if the two sides of the National Council
(basically the SWP and fellow travellers on one side, and everyone
else, including recent expellees from the SWP, on the other) could just
sort out their differences and work together?
But the idea has had less credibility by the hour: the actions
of the SWP and its immediate supporters (in response to a crisis
entirely of their own making) have been so damaging, so cynical and so
reckless that it is now impossible to find a core of members of the
National Council who would be willing to trust them to honour any
agreement that might be proposed.
We already have the experience to show that these fears are well
founded. This is not the first time around for a unity drive: after the
acrimony of the September 22 NC in which 13 out of 14 SWP speakers had
personally attacked George Galloway, seemingly determined to force him
out of Respect, the September 29 National Council carried a succession
of unanimous votes for unity.
Respect at the crossroads
Linda Smith, National Chair, Respect and 26 NC members and councillors
The following document has been sent today (24 October) by National
Chair of Respect, Linda Smith, to the Respect office in order for it to
be circulated to all Respect National Council members. It has been
widely circulated on left blogs and in the light of the editorial
printed in Socialist Worker
attacking George Galloway and others this week we believe that it is
important that all Respect members understand what is at currently at
stake for the future of Respect.
"...it has become
clear over the last two months, and the last two weeks in particular,
that the actions of the SWP leadership imperil the very existence of
Respect as a broad, pluralistic and democratic left alternative to New
Labour... We are appealing to members of Respect to support us in
defending the coalition's plurality. We can no longer allow Respect to
be jeopardised by one section."
Report from the National Council meetings
A new crisis or a new opportunity?
Alan Thornett reports from the latest Respect National Council meetings:
"The
jury is out on whether enough has been done to re-launch Respect on a
broader and more inclusive basis. It is also out on whether the
political will exists in the SWP leadership to positively implement the
decisions adopted which could take the organisation forward. ...both in
terms of tasks and priorities and in terms of opening up Respect to the
broader movement. In fact if fully implemented (what we proposed and was agreed) could re-launch Respect on a more open and attractive basis."
George Galloway’s letter, where we stand
George
Galloway has initiated a debate inside Respect on how to stengthen its
organisation and prepare for a general election. Preparing for a
Respect National Council discussion Alan Thornett and John Lister, after consultling with the "Respect Party Platform", have submitted this statement.
A wake up call for Respect
Alan
Thornett outlines a series of necessary steps for Respect if it is to
grow and present a serious challenge in any forthcoming general
election.
For an Ecosocialist alternative
Savage Capitalism ...the ecosocialist alternative
Why
Socialist Resistance is discussing changing its political programme,
perspectives and public profile towards being an anti-capitalist,
ecosocialist organisation. At the core of this change is the contention
that free-market, privatising neoliberalism has over 20 years arrived
at a new and deadly phase – what we call ‘savage capitalism’. The
document explains why only a socialist response that centrally
addresses the environmental crisis is adequate to the current period.
HTML Articles from Socialist Resistance No.48
Freemantle - POA - Postal workers
Brown’s biggest gamble
Not one more death – Troops
out now
A new crisis or a new opportunity?
- Alan Thornett
Salma Yaqoob ...refutes allegation
Extract from the statement
to NC - Alan Thornett and John Lister
New evidence undermines the case
for hospital closures - John Lister
Camp fights new detention centre
- James Haywood
Migrant rights are human rights
- Liz Peretz
Stop deportations to the Congo
- Innocent Empi
Defend and extend a woman’s
right to choose - Veronica Fagan
Sun Setting on Bush’s Empire
- David Finkel
The most precarious situation
since World War 2 - Jon Kershaw
You can’t separate the
struggles... - Norman Traub - Explo Nani-Kofi
Revolutionary legacy of Thomas
Sankara - James Haywood
Burma– oil interests come
before democracy - Veronica Fagan
Pakistan– No easy time for
dictatorship - Susan Moore
Opportunities and obstacles in
Venezuela - Stuart Piper
Scotland’s conversation:
SNP lacks answers - Terry Conway
Greek anti-capitalists win fourteen
seats - Giorgos Sapounas
Greece aflame - Giorgos Galanis
Irish Greens go into Government
- Joe Craig
Why New Labour supports expansion
of nuclear power - Phil Ward
On the march against banana pesticides
in Nicaragua - James Haywood
Checking the parties’ green
credentials - Derek Wall
Build February 9 trade union
conference - Bob Whitehead
ALL OUT December 8! - Terry
Conway
The Bhopal Disaster - Patrick
Scott
Connolly: A beacon to guide the
left - Piers Mostyn
Building an ecosocialist movement
FI Summer camp 2007 - Tracy
Nguyen
Protestors picket Shell in Southend
- Norman Traub
SR47 - September 2007 - Contents - PDF
SR46 - Summer 2007 - Contents - PDF
SR45 - May 2007 - Contents - PDF
SR44 - April 2007 - PDF
SR43 - March-April 2007 - PDF
...and earlier PDFs -
Socialist Resistance editorials – 23 July 2007
Politics under Brown
Brown’s task has always been to look different to Blair – but remain
exactly the same on the key issues. It was never going to be difficult
to look better than Blair of course. But Brown’s record since he has
been in office – and what he has already spelled out for the future is
a worse situation than many on the left with illusions in him
predicted....Socialist Resistance believes that the crisis of political
representation has to be resolved by a break from New Labour and the
construction of a new political affiliations. While we will work as
vigorously as we can to build solidarity with workers going into
struggle around pay and conditions in the autumn, we know that the
working class needs a political as well as an industrial answer to new
Labour’s neoliberalism.
End the Israeli occupation
The tragedy unfolding in the streets and refugee camps of Gaza
represents the death throes of the Oslo “peace process”. Only the
immediate, complete and unconditional end to Israel’s occupation can
create the circumstances in which Palestinians can even begin to
determine their future.
Socialist Resistance Statement - 25 May 2007
Brown wins without a contest - where now for the Labour left?
"We can all say good riddance to Tony Blair. It was fitting that it was
the war that got him in the end. However he tried he could never shake
off the lies and bloodshed involved. Gordon Brown will now be crowned
Labour leader and then Prime Minister on June 27. Its goodbye Blair,
but Blairism continues." |
KEY LINKS
Socialist Resistance books
Respect Renewal
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