action for extension of abortion rights to northern ireland

TAKE ACTION FOR EXTENSION OF ABORTION RIGHTS TO NORTHERN IRELAND, 7.45AM-9AM MON 20TH OCT

On 22nd October, MPs will vote on the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill. As well as several anti-choice, anti-women amendments, there are real opportunities to extend abortion rights – including access to abortion for women in Northern Ireland, an end to the two doctor rule, increasing the pool of abortion practitioners, allowing more local abortion services and banning misleading advertising.

Feminist Fightback are focusing on the extension of abortion rights to Northern Ireland, where currently it is is illegal to have an abortion, even in cases of rape and incest. Working class women suffer the most. As well as having to fund travel abroad, the procedure is £600, which means some women are forced to bear children against their will. Cathleen O’Neill of Alliance for Choice explains: “If I had a pound for every fundraiser I worked on to help working class women go to England for an abortion, I’d be a rich woman… Almost every other week. It’s bad enough for those who can afford to travel, but for poorer women it’s hell. It’s time those who claim to represent us to get a grip on reality and take steps to end this nightmare”

We will be taking direct action in London at the same time as Alliance for Choice activists in Belfast to heap on pressure to ensure our sisters in Northern Ireland have access to the same abortion rights as women in England, Scotland and Wales.

We want lots of feminists to get involved in non-arrestable (leafleting, legal support, press relations and demonstrating) or arrestable roles. We’re meeting at 7:45am tomorrow, Monday 20th, at the news-stand below the ‘elephant’ at Elephant and Castle (Bakerloo/Northern lines).

Phone 07971 719797 for further info (if you’re coming you may as well write it down in case you can’t find us and need to phone!)

You can also email feminist.fightback@gmail.com

meeting on ‘new methods of organising’

[click here to see the recommended reading for the meeting]

On Monday evening UNISON activist Anton Moctonian gave a talk at our ‘uncaptive minds’ discussion forum about new public sector union organising methods in the 1970s, with particular focus on the growth and decentralisation of NUPE and the development of its shop steward organisation.

NUPE, which organised hundreds of thousands of low-paid local government employees, is now well-known for the strikes which meant “rubbish piling up in the streets” and “unburied dead”, playing an important role the collapse of Jim Callaghan’s 1976-79 Labour government. The union experienced rapid growth in the period under discussion in our forums, with 265,000 members in 1968; 433,000 in 1973; and 712,000 by 1979.

photo-report of ‘march on the city’ demo

by David Broder

Friday 10th saw a demonstration in the City of London called ‘march on the City’. The organisers of the 200-strong protest were the Socialist Workers’ Party, but a number of anarchists participated (no organisations or papers though) as well as two of us and a friend, a few from Workers’ Power and one person from the Socialist Party. The large majority of those in attendance were students.

The protest reprised some of the slogans of the “anti-capitalist movement” which existed around ten years ago, and there was plenty of militancy and activist energy on show. Of course, the real aim of the protest was not to put pressure on the government or banks (to do what?) but rather to give the SWP students “something to do” as part of the organisation’s current turn from East-End electoral work towards anti-fascist and anti-capitalist “activism”.

A rather more worthwhile protest will be the Schroders cleaners’ demonstration at 5pm on Friday 17th (details in Jake’s comment here). The National Shop Stewards Network has organised a further protest on Monday 13th at noon.

Below are some photos and a video. A couple of them are ripped off other websites.

leaflet: why we need workers’ management

We have produced a leaflet on the need for workers’ management and explaining some of our basic political positions.

A pdf file of the 4-page A5 leaflet is below – since it’s landscape you’ll have to print it off, or failing that tilt your head side-on.

why we need workers’ management

We have also produced a pdf file of a leaflet we had earlier produced, the cost of living: it’s time to act

between secession, revolution and suicidal deals

The Commune has published many reports from Bolivia, mostly translations of articles by the trade union news website Econoticias. We have also established contact with Socialismo o Barbarie, a group who have comrades in Argentina, Brazil, Costa Rica and Paraguay as well as Bolivia, and so are pleased to publish this translation of a recent SoB report on the social crisis there.

Bolivia on the brink of partition
By José Luis Rojo and Martín Camacho
From Socialismo o Barbarie in La Paz, 17th September

“The fascists shall not pass: the people will crush them”.
La Paz – Once again, events are moving rapidly in Bolivia. After two years of relative “calm” in the class struggle (2006-2007) in recent months the social and political convulsions traversing the country have again become red-hot.

tom d’s report of workers’ control meeting

Tom D has written this report of our ‘uncaptive minds‘ forum on ‘the debates on workers’ control’ held on Monday 29th September.

What does it mean for workers to control the institutions that determine the content of their lives? What does it mean for us to control organisations of struggle, factories, workplaces, production, consumption – and, ultimately, all society? This question matters, because it is posed ever more intensely, the higher the pitch of the class struggle, until it becomes the final question of politics. The answer is the difference between victory and defeat, communism and bureaucracy.

new texts in ‘ideas’

We have added some new articles to the ‘ideas‘ section of the website. Foreword by Chris Kane

The national question remains of particular concern to  communists and socialists in the 21st century. One of the principle sources on the national question remains the writings of the Russian communist Lenin.  Here is a critical examination of Lenin’s theory of the national question by the Ukrainian Marxist Andrij Karpenko, from the Ukrainian socialist journal META.  We have also reproduced a pamphlet by the theorist of the then newly formed and at that time genuine Communist Party of Great Britain, William Paul, on the Irish question and its relationship to the world revolution.

Indeed, since the launching of The Commune many on the traditional left have been searching for ways to categorise us: we have been branded ‘anti-Bolsheviks’ by the Trotskyists and ‘Leninists’ by the anarchists. We recognise Lenin, with other communists of his generation, as an vitally important revolutionary of the 20th century.  As critical Marxists, we neither demonise Lenin nor raise him to the figure of a Pope. On The Commune we have published a number of writers who have critically engaged with Lenin’s ideas such as Paul Cardan (Castoriadis).  Here we reproduce a defence of Lenin against Cardan by Raya Dunayevskaya, the founder of Marxist-Humanism in the USA.  Dunayevskaya was critical of Lenin, in particular his views on the leading role of the vanguard Party, but she was equally critical of anti-Leninists.   The Scottish Marxist-Humanist edited by Harry McShane first published this article.

press conference with behrooz karimizadeh and kaveh abbasian

On Monday 29th September there was a press conference at the University of London Union with Iranian activists Behrooz Karimizadeh and Kaveh Abbasian. The pair were among the founding members of Freedom and Equality Seeking Students, an organisation which is opposed to war and sanctions as well as the Islamist régime and which last autumn played a central role in student protests against President Ahmedinejad. Following these demonstrations the régime cracked down on the student movement, arresting dozens of activists – Behrooz Karimizadeh was subjected to torture. Ted Crawford has kindly given us permission to reproduce his report on Monday’s press conference:

reading material for 29th september (updated)

Comrades may be interested in a look at some of the following articles, which relate to the subject of our 29th September ‘uncaptive minds’ forum on ‘the debates over workers’ control’ in the 1970s workers’ movement.

Self-management in the struggle for socialism (by Raptis, aka Pablo)

The ambiguities of “workers’ control” (Solidarity)

The struggle for self-management: an open letter to IS comrades (Solidarity)

What is Workers’ Control? (Solidarity exchange with Institute for Workers’ Control)

Workers’ Control and Revolutionary Theory: an appraisal of the publications of the Institute for Workers’ Control (Richard Hyman)

This piece is from a slightly earlier period but is still of interest:

Nationalisation: a socialist analysis (ILP)

l’étincelle expelled from lutte ouvrière

The majority faction in Lutte Ouvrière, the second largest Trotskyist group in France, this Sunday expelled its minority L’Étincelle faction, which is sympathetic to the Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire and its proposed New Anti-capitalist Party project.

witnesses to the pando massacre

Below are eye-witness reports from the massacre perpetrated by fascists in Pando province, northern Bolivia, on Thursday 11th September, in which thirty peasants were killed and fifty wounded. Over one hundred people are still missing. 

This video (the speech is all in Spanish but the footage can speak for itself) show fascists shooting at peasants as they swim across the river in a desperate effort to escape the violence.

last night’s meeting on the 1970 leeds clothing workers’ strike

by Chris Ford

Twenty-seven people attended the Uncaptive Minds forum last night for the exclusive showing of Leeds-United!, the 1974 Play for Today BBC film made by Roy Battersby, dramatising the story of the 20,000-strong Leeds clothing workers’ strike of 1970.  The vast majority of the audience were trade unionists, with members of RMT, UNISON, UCU, UNITE, CWU, NUJ and PCS present.

new pamphlet on bolivia

We have produced a pamphlet on the current class struggle and social crisis in Bolivia. The pamphlet, costing £1, includes analysis of the far-right’s mounting coup attempts and the state of the workers’ movement, along with translations of documents produced by the Central Obrera Boliviana union federation and the miners’ union.

If you would like a copy of the 18 page pamphlet, email uncaptiveminds@googlemail.com or write to us at The Commune, 2nd Floor, 145-157 St John Street, London EC1V 4PY.

morales and the fascists prepare an agreement

Translated from the Spanish from Econoticias Bolivia

La Paz, September 15th 2008: Amidst the pain suffered by the Bolivian people and the moral condemnation they have made of the murder of almost thirty peasants in the north of Bolivia, who were attacked by the oligarchy and fascists acting with impunity, in La Paz dialogue continues between Evo Morales’ indigenous government and the fascist National Democratic Council (Conalde) which brings together the genocidal right-wing opposition governors.