In memory Brian Moore – ‘Cormac’

14th March 2011 Socialist Action 0

Socialist Action express sadness at the death of Brian Moore – ‘Cormac’

Socialist Action was deeply saddened to hear of the death of Brian Moore, the political cartoonist known as ‘Cormac’, who died on Saturday night (12th March). Brian was well known by his sharp and insightful cartoons ‘Notes by Cormac’ which appeared in Republican News and An Phoblacht.

Brian was also a regular contributor to Socialist Action weekly newspaper throughout the 1980s and to its predecessor, Socialist Challenge in the 1970s. His cartoons in Socialist Action – ‘A Piece of the Action’ – showed his incisive, hilarious and sometimes surreal take on many political issues during that period. They revealed his socialist, republican and internationalist view of the world.

Photo by: Neil T

A first sign that the new rise in the colonial revolution is creating a wider radicalisation

9th March 2011 Socialist Action 0

The Equality Movement

By Jennifer Nash

The new rise in the revolution in the colonial world that began in Latin America with Chavez’s Bolivarian revolution and ‘21st century socialism’, and which is now – on a higher level of mass struggle – sweeping through the Middle East, is of a scale to create a radicalisation in the imperialist countries.

The fundamental lesson of the struggle in Egypt is that when millions of people rise even the most well-armed dictatorship can be forced to give way. This lesson is not lost on young people in the imperialist countries.

Wall Street Journal reveals US hypocrisy and lies on democracy in Middle East

5th March 2011 Socialist Action 0

By Brian Clark

Socialist Action has constantly pointed out that US administration claims that its policy is to support democracy in the Middle East is a straightforward lie and characteristic of imperialist hypocrisy. Of interest, therefore, is that the Wall Street Journal, the most authoritative journal of US business, has now carried a long detailed front page analysis of US attempts to suppress democracy when confronted with the uprisings in the Arab countries.

Cuba says support human rights not imperialist intervention

4th March 2011 Socialist Action 0

A deceit currently being promoted by the US and British governments is that any western intervention into Libya is in order to defend human rights. As Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, Cuba’s Minister of Foreign Affairs pointed out in his statement to the UN Human Rights Council, these are not imperialism’s real concerns. The principle human right – the right to life – is denied by these same powers, whose invasions of countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan have left hundreds of thousands dead. Alongside that there is the well-established use by the US of torture at Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib, plus Britain’s involvement in the US abduction programme. That indicates the real view these states take on human rights.

Photo: 3arabawy

Lenin on the dynamics of the struggle against imperialism

4th March 2011 Socialist Action 0

By Alan Davies

Lenin emphasised that it is a fundamental error to conceive of the class struggle as between the working class of one country and the capitalist class of that country – of the British working class against British capitalism, of the French working class against the French capitalists, etc. Instead, Lenin noted: ‘The socialist revolution will not be solely or chiefly, a struggle of the revolutionary proletarians in each country against their own bourgeoisie – no, it will be a struggle of all the imperialist-oppressed colonies and countries, of all dependent countries, against international imperialism’ (Lenin V. I., 22 November 1919). Lenin’s point continually needs understanding and emphasising, particularly in imperialist countries.1