By KJELL OSTBERG The outcome of the Swedish parliamentary election on 9 September confirms a general European trend: rising right-wing populism and a weakening Social Democracy. The traditional picture of Sweden as the home of a progressive social democratic welfare state has been fading away for several decades now. The outcome of the Swedish parliamentary…
By MARTY GOODMAN A showdown between capital and labor in France over the privatization of the national railroad will extend into the summer and possibly beyond. France’s nationalized railroad, SNCF, is a source of pride for most French people—and in particular, for rail workers, who recognize the landmark rights they’ve won by striking over many…
By MARTY GOODMAN In a massive display of working-class power, workers throughout France walked off the job on March 22 and on April 3, launching a long-term series of one-day strikes. The strike wave is aimed at the anti-working-class attacks of the neoliberal French president, Emanuel Macron. The strike action gained tremendous force on March…
By JULIA CAMARA On March 8, International Women’s Day, over 5 million took part in an unprecedented “feminist strike” in cities throughout the Spanish state. They participated in two-hour walk-outs and rallied under the slogan, “If we stop, the world stops.” This article was first posted on March 10 on the Viento Sur website. The…
On Oct. 27, the parliament of Catalonia voted for independence from the Spanish state. However, on the same day, the central government in Madrid, citing Article 155 of the constitution, dissolved the Catalan parliament and nullified its vote. Below is a response to those events, issued on Oct. 30 by the Izquierda Anticapitalista Revolucionaria (IZAR),…
By Fourth International Bureau On 20 September 2017, the Civil Guard and the Spanish National Police arrested 14 senior officials of the Generalitat (the Catalan government) and carried out 40 searches of public buildings and private homes. A police operation then seized propaganda material of the CUP (Candidatura de Unidad Popular, the main party of…
By MANOS SKOUFOGLOU — ATHENS — During recent years, the debate on Greece has not been just a debate among the other ones. The particular intensity of the crisis, of the capitalist attack and of the social fightback, as well as the emergence of a party of reformist origin that finally managed to take power,…
By BARRY SHEPPARD In regard to the charges about Trump‘s collusion with Russia to throw the election his way, and Russian meddling in the elections, we can mention that the list of the elections in all the countries Washington meddled in is far too long to for this post. In fact, the U.S. is the…
By MITCH USMC 05-09 The author is a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps in Iraq and a member of Socialist Action. Can hazing build strong bonds in military, school, or athletic associations? No it cannot. The opposite is true. Hazing is about breaking down an individual to conform. Its about fear and obedience. It…
By ANN MONTAGUE The British Labour Party has emerged with more than 200,000 new members and 30 additional seats in Parliament. This has surprised the Tories as well as some of the Labour Party Members of Parliament (MPs), who were shocked to hear union members shouting, “We killed Blairism.” The party’s resurgence gathered steam with…
By ANDY STOWE Elizabeth Windsor, the English queen, isn’t supposed to make political statements, but on June 16 she announced to the world that she thinks Tory Prime Minister Theresa May is a morally gutless coward and a useless leader. Of course, she didn’t quite put it that way. Instead, she met survivors of the Grenfell…
A displaced resident of the now destroyed Grenfell Tower in London told the press after the June 14 pre-dawn fire: “A building like that wouldn’t fly in a rich area. But because everyone here is poor and working class—that’s why it happened.” For years, residents of the 24-story tower block had complained to local government…
CHRIS HUTCHINSON interviews JEAN ROCH-FORT Emmanuel Macron, a French banker and longtime establishment politician, emerged victorious on a “third party” ticket in this year’s French elections. His victory follows the breakdown of the traditional center left and right capitalist parties through major corruption scandals. The candidate of the Republicans, a center right-wing party, Nathan Fillon,…
By THOMAS WEYTS — BRUSSELS —Twelve thousand people took part in the demonstration here on May 24 against Trump and the world that he stands for and against NATO. As expected and hoped, it was a very diverse, lively, and militant demonstration. More than 70 organizations took to the streets against war and imperialist adventures,…
By ANN MONTAGUE Women in Ireland are going on strike to protest the country’s ban on abortions. In Ireland it is a crime to have an abortion, and the procedure carries a 14-year prison sentence. There are no exceptions for rape or incest or when the fetus cannot survive outside the womb due to a…
By Y. FIKRET KAYALI The Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, barely rescued from the grave, may yet prove to be one of the walking-dead. The signature of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and those of his European counterparts on the document are, at this point, merely ceremonial. Before implementation, ratification votes must be held in Ottawa and…
By PHIL HEARSE It is likely that the victory of Donald Trump in the U.S. presidential elections will give new momentum to the right wing in world politics. As part of the discussion, we print this article from Phil Hearse, which appeared in Socialist Resistance, journal of the British section of the Fourth International. The international…
By LAZARO MONTEVERDE After over 315 days of political stalemate, the right-wing Partido Popular [PP] has regained control in Spain with the tacit support of the Spanish Socialist Workers Party [PSOE]. The vote to form the new government took place in two stages, the first on Oct. 27 and the second on Oct. 29, just…
By ANN MONTAGUE In October there were mass protests linked with strike activity by women in three countries. The feminist strike demands were unique to each country and an indication of increased militancy around demands that address issues women have been fighting for year after year. Poland: Abortion On Oct. 3, seven million women throughout…
By MARTY GOODMAN This year activists received an education in corporate politics when Wikileaks revealed the dirty tricks played on Bernie Sanders by Hillary Clinton operatives. Just as in corporate America, you can’t find two cents worth of democracy in the Democratic Party. For those tired of the corporate rule of both major parties, the Green…
By LAZARO MONTEVERDE The political revolution has been postponed. For the second time in six months Spanish voters went to the polls to vote in national elections on June 26. The big winner was the hard right and the biggest loser was the new left-populist party Podemos. An earlier election held on Dec. 20 resulted…
By SOCIALIST DEMOCRACY — Socialist Democracy is the sympathizing organization of the Fourth International in Ireland. — At first sight, the Tale of 1916 seems a simple one. On the one hand, there was a small band—an alliance of socialists and revolutionary democrats. On the other hand, were the British imperialists and their Unionist supporters.…
By JEFF MACKLER One million workers and students took to the streets of Paris and cities across France on March 31 to protest draconian Labor Code changes proposed by the austerity-minded governing French Socialist Party of Francois Holland. The changes are set to be considered by the French parliament in late April; more giant protests…
By CARL SACK After 10 days of talks at the COP 21 climate conference in Paris, negotiators from 195 countries celebrated the adoption of an agreement that calls for a goal of limiting global warming to 1.5o Centigrade above pre-industrial levels. On one hand, the agreement goes farther than any previous accord to acknowledge the…
By LISA LUINENBURG A huge number of refugees have been flowing across European borders in the last year, and this great migration crisis has had reverberations in the United States as well, where over 100,000 migrants fleeing violence in Central America arrived in 2015. As of Dec. 21, more than a million refugees have crossed…
