Thatcher – a legacy of destruction

10th April 2013 Socialist Action 0

By Jane West

The death of Margaret Thatcher is being shamelessly exploited by her Tory successors, including by awarding her an entirely inappropriate national funeral. This is all in the service of presenting the most divisive British Prime Minister of the 20th century as the most successful post-Churchill Tory leader, an electoral wizard, a paragon of statesmanship, the flame-bearer of liberty and ‘freedom’, a feminist icon and an innovative policy maker.

None are true.

Map by: Burmesedays

US ratchets up tension on Korean peninsular

6th April 2013 Socialist Action 0

By Jane West

The bellicose response by the US and others to the latest developments in North Korea is in no way a proportional response to any real threat from the small East Asian state, but an excuse for quite other military objectives.

The US used its known language of war – ‘a real and clear danger’ – to announce its decision to extend its advanced missile defence system to the Pacific island of Guam. As no one in their right mind believes that North Korea has the capacity to hit the US – or virtually anywhere very far from its own borders – with a nuclear-armed missile, this step has other purposes. The country in the US’s binoculars is not North Korea but rising China, and the Guam move is a further step in its announced ‘pivot’ to Asia aimed at militarily encircling China.

US and right seek to overthrow Venezuela’s democracy and its revolution

5th April 2013 Socialist Action 0

By Paul Roberts

Venezuela’s Presidential election takes place in just over a week, with Chávismo, one of the most advanced political currents in the world, set to win once more under Nicolás Maduro. Given this, imperialism and its local allies are stepping up their campaign to discredit the expected result as part of their strategy to defeat Venezuela’s socialist revolution.

Defending the Good Friday Agreement, and the lessons of 1916

2nd April 2013 Socialist Action 0

Next week will see the 15th Anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, described recently by Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness as ‘the single most important political agreement in our time’.

In his speech to the Dublin Commemoration of the 1916 Easter Rising, Martin McGuinness speaks of the Agreement as a turning point in Irish history, and resulting in a period in which republican objectives can be realised. He also warns against complacency and of the threats posed to the Good Friday Agreement by those who oppose equality and change.

Situating today’s struggle for a united Ireland in the context of the revolutionary struggle of 1916 which ‘started a bush fire of decolonisation, which engulfed the British Empire’, he spoke of the inspiration it inspired in ‘generations of people throughout the world who rose up against colonial rule’.