Arkivet – Nummervisning

Fra Socialist Review nr. 332

Forfatter: Titel

Nr.

Side

Udgivet

Om

Socialist Review 332: Content

332

3

jan 09

Exhibition: Cuba–50 Yeras of Revolution (Magnum Print Room, London)

332

2

jan 09

To mark the 50th anniversary of the Cuban Revolution on 1 January, Magnum Photos presents an exhibition of vinatge and contemporary photographs of the the country.

Editorial

332

3

jan 09

The struggles of Greek workers and students exploded onto the world stage at the end of last year and struck fear into governments across Europe. Mass protests have also taken place in Ireland and Italy.

Judith Orr: Economic crisis: making us pay

332

4

jan 09

To read the papers in recent weeks you might be forgiven for assuming that car workers' wage levels and public sector pensions caused the financial crisis currently wreaking havoc across the globe.

Patrick Ward: New challenges for the new year

332

4

jan 09

This time last year the world looked very different. Ian McCafferty, the chief economic adviser of the CBI, argued on New Year's Eve 2007, "While the 2008 slowdown may appear dramatic set against this year's strong growth, the fundamentals of our economy remain sound and talk of a full-blown recession is overstated."

Post neoliberalism?

332

5

jan 09

So much for Gordon Brown's claim in November that "old free market fundamentalism, no matter how it is dressed up, has been found wanting". The publication of Richard Hooper's report on the future of Royal Mail, "Modernise or Decline", suggests that part-privatisation is well and truly on the cards.

Patrick Ward: Climate change: radical solutions needed

332

6

jan 09

Building a Low-Carbon Economy, Lord Adair Turner's 511 page report, made interesting Xmas reading for environmental campaigners. Produced by the Committee on Climate Change, which Turner chairs, it is the government plan to drag the world out of the clutches of uncontrolled climate change.

Patrick Ward: Recession to the rescue

332

7

jan 09

"Tell people that biology and the environment cause obesity and they are offered the one thing we have to avoid: an excuse," said Tory shadow health secretary Andrew Lansley last summer. "We have to take away the excuses." Having a job is probably one of those excuses too.

Patrick Ward: It was. Are you?

332

7

jan 09

"I feel a terrible personal failure – it's a very nasty place to be if you're me," said Independent editor Roger Alton, after the newspaper lost 16.29 percent of its readership in one year.

Lindsey German: In my opinion: Mobilise against system

332

7

jan 09

The protests that have shaken Greece are a sign of things to come. Initially over the shooting of a teenager by police in Athens, demonstrations and riots spread across the country, threatening the future of the government and crystallising the depth of bitterness and anger among working class people.

Giorgos Pittas: Letter from ...: Greece

332

9

jan 09

Anger at the government's neoliberal policies and police brutality has electrified Greece, reports Giorgos Pittas.
Millions of workers took part in the 10 December general strike. The whole country was paralysed as people demonstrated in Athens and other cities against the right wing New Democracy government, shouting, "Down with the murderers."

Mike Gonzalez: Latin America and the struggles to come

332

10

jan 09

For a decade global capitalism has suffered setbacks and defeats in the continent where it had been at its most aggressive. Mike Gonzalez argues it is the new forces that have led the resistance which are central to continuing the struggle for a new society.

Mike Davis: In my opinion: The betrayed generation

332

13

jan 09

Our societies are supersaturated with unrecognised anger that can suddenly crystallise around a single incident of police abuse or state repression. Yet although the seeds of revolt have been so flagrantly sown bourgeois society seldom recognises its own harvest.

Chris Harman: In Perspective: Was the 'New Deal' a good deal?

332

14

jan 09

It is accepted wisdom that President Franklin D Roosevelt pulled the US out of the Depression with the New Deal. But in reality there were numerous forces at play.

John Molyneux: Socialism can work

332

15

jan 09

Some people think that socialism sounds great but will never work in practice. John Molyneux challenges their arguments and explores what socialism would look like.

Judith Orr + Patrick Ward: Interview with István Mészáros:: A structural crisis of the system

332

18

jan 09

István Mészáros won the 1971 Deutscher Prize for his book Marx's Theory of Alienation and has written on Marxism ever since. He talks to Judith Orr and Patrick Ward about the current economic crisis.

Mike Haynes: A to Z of Socialism: S is for state capitalism

332

21

jan 09

As global capitalism flounders, the world's governments are scrambling to use state action to try to stop the rot and bail out the system. After two decades of being told that the market works best, the state is back.

Tony Cliff: Rosa Luxemburg: a life of struggle

332

22

jan 09

When Rosa Luxemburg was murdered 90 years ago this month, the international workers' movement lost one of its greatest revolutionaries. Here we reprint an evaluation of her life from a pamphlet by Socialist Workers Party founder Tony Cliff, first published in 1959.
Alt. url: Læs artiklen på dansk

Neil Faulkner: Book Review: Fixing Global Finance

332

25

jan 09

Martin Wolf, Yale University Press, £18.99
"To have had one crisis may have been a misfortune," says Martin Wolf, commenting on the financial meltdowns of the neoliberal era, "[but] to have had 112 was surely the result of extreme carelessness." For a top Financial Times journalist and a leading advocate of neoliberalism for two decades, he can be disarmingly honest: "The banking industry is evidently a disaster not merely waiting to happen, but in fact happening all the time, and all around us." Quite.

Lindsey German: Book Review: The Liberal Defence of Murder

332

26

jan 09

Richard Seymour, Verso, £16.99
One form of collateral damage from the "war on terror" has been the proliferation of pro-war liberals. These supposedly enlightened intellectuals and former left wingers have used access to the media to justify indiscriminate bombing and colonial occupation in the name of anti-fascism, women's liberation and Western values of freedom and democracy.

John Parrington: Book Review: Critique of Intelligent Design

332

26

jan 09

John Bellamy Foster, Brett Clark and Richard York, Monthly Review Press, £10.95
The subject of this book is so-called "intelligent design", the idea that the biological world is so complex that it could only have arisen through the work of a creator.
This was once the accepted view of society, until Charles Darwin showed in the mid-19th century that all organisms on earth, including human beings, evolved through the process of natural selection. Now right wing fundamentalist Christians in the US are trying to foist this discredited idea back upon us.

Charlie Hore: Book Review: The Rise of China and the Demise of the Capitalist World Economy

332

27

jan 09

Minqi Li, Pluto Press, £19.99
This is an interesting, if frustrating, read, both for the picture it gives of China on the edge of recession and for the insights into Maoism's revival.

Martin Smith: Book Review: Forward Groove

332

27

jan 09

Chris Searle, Northway Publications, £14.99
Several years ago I was fortunate enough to interview Rashid Ali, the legendary drummer and one time collaborator with John Coltrane.
He told me, "They were trying times in the 1960s. We had the civil rights thing going on; we had King; we had the Panthers. There was so much diversity happening. People were screaming for their rights and wanting to be equal, be free. Naturally our music reflected that whole period."
These are sentiments author Chris Searle clearly shares.

Ingrid Lamprecht: Book Review: The Girl Who Played with Fire

332

28

jan 09

Stieg Larsson, Maclehose Press, £16.99
The second crime novel in Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy is a page turner of the highest quality.

Chris Bambery: Book Review: High Society in the Third Reich

332

28

jan 09

Fabrice d'Almeida, Polity, £16.99
This book provides a wealth of information about the Nazis and their relationship with the ruling class in Germany. What it shows is that the Nazis did not have the support of most of the ruling class until the final months before they took power, and in some cases after. But from their earliest days they enjoyed a degree of support.

Jonny Jones: Book Review: Raymond Williams

332

29

jan 09

Dai Smith, Parthian Books, £12.99
In his 1958 essay "Culture is Ordinary", Raymond Williams writes of his time in university that he was "in no mood, as I walked about Cambridge, to feel glad that I had been thought deserving; I was no better and no worse than the people I came from ... because of this, I got angry at my friend's talk about the ignorant masses."

Roger Cox: Book Review: Life on the Tracks

332

29

jan 09

Frank Henderson, Bookmarks, £7.99
Frank Henderson was an active Trotskyist all his working life and a militant car worker during the great revival of the British working class after the war. This account of his life, subtitled Memoirs of a Socialist Worker, shows that this was not an easy time despite the conditions of full employment that existed.

Patrick Ward: Book Review: Censored 2009

332

30

jan 09

Eds: Peter Phillips and Andrew Roth, Seven Stories, £11.99
Censored 2009 is a collection of some of the stories which didn't hit the mainstream US news in 2007-2008. While the Winter Soldier testimonies of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans which exposed the brutality of the occupations were ignored, plenty of airtime was available for stories of actor David Hasselhoff's drinking and junk food binges. As the trials and tribulations of Britney Spears dominated the major news networks, news that US oil giant Chevron was complicit in Burma's dictatorship was relegated to the alternative media.

Katya Nasim: Book Review: Israel's Occupation

332

30

jan 09

Neve Gordon, University of California Press, £12.95
Covering four decades and interweaving a vast range of documents, records and first hand testimony, Neve Gordon offers a unique perspective on the changing dynamics of the Israel-Palestine conflict.

New in paperback and children's books

332

30

jan 09

Al-Sadr – Flat Earth News – Charles Darwin – Garibaldi

Martin Smith: Culture Column: The Specials – so much, so young

332

31

jan 09

In 1981 Britain was in a state of crisis: 2.5 million people were unemployed and Margaret Thatcher's government was deeply unpopular.

Colin Wilson: Film Review: Milk

332

32

jan 09

Director Gus Van Sant; Release date: 23 January
Harvey Milk, one of the first out gay people elected to public office in the US, arrived in San Francisco aged 42. Having left behind a respectable life as a New York insurance salesman, Milk grew his hair long, joined the city's rapidly growing gay population, and defied both the Democrat and gay establishments by running for the city government position of supervisor.

Nick Grant: Film Review: Che: Part One

332

32

jan 09

Director Steven Soderbergh; Release date: out now
In 1960 Cuba's rebel leaders were fighting for their political lives, a year after ousting US stooge President Batista.
Sabotage took many forms. On 5 March the arms-laden La Coubre exploded in Havana dock, killing hundreds. At the next day's funeral gathering a young photographer, Alberto Korda, captured an image that would become one of the century's greatest.
Ernesto "Che" Guevara's portrait spoke volumes to subsequent generations and was reproduced billions of times worldwide.

Kevin Best: Film Review: Slumdog Millionaire

332

33

jan 09

Director Danny Boyle; Release date: 9 January
Jamal is one question away from winning India's version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire when the klaxon sounds and "that's all they've got time for". His anxious wait for the show to resume is helped little by the police throwing him in jail. How can a "chai wallah" (tea maker) from a call centre have got further on the show than any lawyer or army major without cheating?

Mary Brodbin: Exhibition Review: Bernadette

332

33

jan 09

Hotel, London; Until 18 January
A small art gallery in Bethnal Green is showing a short film by Duncan Campbell of Bernadette Devlin which, when it is focusing on Devlin, who in 1969 at the age of 21 became the youngest ever woman MP, is totally riveting.

Five Things to get or see this month

332

34

jan 09

Frost/Nixon – Darwin Exhibition – The Pitmen painters – Truner in January – Why I don't hate white people

Keith Flett + Tim Sanders: A People's History of the World. 19: What have the Romans ever done for us? Decline and Fall

332

35

jan 09

Cartoon

Chris Nineham: Book Review: The Long Road to Baghdad (online only)

332

jan 09

Lloyd C Gardner, The New Press, £18.99
This is an important book. It stands out from the growing literature on the build-up to the Iraq war for three reasons. First it has to be amongst the most closely researched and information-rich accounts of how and why US foreign policy has evolved.
Secondly, the resulting account explains the twists and turns of the last four decades of Middle East policy very clearly.
Most important of all though is the book's timeframe and its central argument. Gardner places the current wars into a historical sweep starting from the shock of the Vietnam defeat.

Peter Dwyer: Book Review: The Trouble with Aid

332

jan 09

The image of Africa often shown in the media is of a poverty ridden and war torn continent in desperate need of emergency aid. But as Jonathan Glennie shows most aid money is not given by charities but in the form of "development aid" given by government and other official aid agencies for medium and long-term socio-economic development.