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We are publishing here a transcript of an interview with Éric Toussaint by journalist and publisher Mario Hernandez for the radio programme “Metropolis”, broadcast on June 13, 2024 on Radio del Pueblo (People’s Radio), AM 830, in the city of Buenos Aires. Mario Hernandez : This is an analysis of the elections for the European Parliament, where far-right forces have made headway, particularly in the Netherlands, Austria and above all in France with Marine Le Pen’s victory, which led President Macron to call early elections. In terms of results, it’s clear that there’s been a shift to the right that’s becoming increasingly pronounced Éric Toussaint : Elections were held from June 6 to 9, 2024 in 27 EU countries, but with a very low turnout of less than 50% of voters. In terms of ...

Une Europe qui vire au noir et au brun 24 juin par Eric Toussaint printer printer text Photo : Gregor Fischer, Flickr, CC, https://www.flickr.com/photos/gonzo_photo/4067870123 How should we interpret the results of the EU parliamentary elections? In Croatia the voter turnout was only 21.35% The first observation: in the EU elections held in all 27 member countries between 6 and 9 June 2024, voter turnout was once again very low. The average for the entire European Union was 51%. But keep in mind that countries where voting is compulsory also figure into the calculation of that average – for example Belgium, where voter turnout was 90%. [1] Without those countries, the rate of participation in the election would drop below the 50% mark. Out of the 27 EU member countries, 15 ha...

Members of Pakistan Chapter deeply mourns the passing of eminent labour rights activist Karamat Ali, whose contribution to labour rights in Pakistan and in the wider South Asian region will not be easily matched. A founding member and Executive Director of the Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research (PILER), Mr. Karamat Ali spent decades advocating tirelessly for the rights of bonded labourers, migrant workers, peasants & industrial workers. He was an expert to promote for the right to collective bargaining and social security for workers. As a labour leader in his earlier days, he was committed to the idea that trade unions should be equipped with education and training to function more effectively. Main  reason to established PILER and agreed working class Com...

Join us in Chicago for a four day conference of socialist politics, education, and community. August 30-September 2, 2024 100 years after Vladimir Lenin’s death, his exhortations to learn and think in the concrete remain urgent for our movements.What does it mean to approach our political practice not as an abstract set of rules, but as a collective rehearsal of coming worlds? Join Ruth Wilson Gilmore as she explores how we can perceive, expand, and connect contemporary world-experiments rehearsing abolitionist, communist, and anti-imperialist movement around the planet.Don’t miss it! Register for Socialism 2024 by June 28 for the early bird discounted rate! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9m5M5Htuzc Register for Socialism 2024 by June 28th! Please note: the Socialism Co...

Where Olive Trees Weep is a beautiful and poignant new film about the struggles and resilience of Palestinians. Cinema can be a powerful force for change. Our aim is, beyond mere education, to truly move hearts and minds and inspire audiences to echo the calls for freedom, equality and dignity that have gone unanswered for far too long. https://whereolivetreesweep.com/?fbclid=IwAR2TMot6MDvgQV8SKdMEapSe-R8GT6tnjHaRqiMBQ0_Rflmn9Jygy2UukgY_aem_mGgByBXBkkNJs7eQ9lXw8A&utm_medium=paid&utm_source=fb&utm_id=120211883786920131&utm_content=120211884425730131&utm_term=120211883787520131&utm_campaign=120211883786920131&sfnsn=scwspmo https://whereolivetreesweep.com/?fbclid=IwAR2TMot6MDvgQV8SKdMEapSe-R8GT6tnjHaRqiMBQ0_Rflmn9Jygy2UukgY_aem_mGgByBXBkkNJs7eQ9lXw8A&utm_me...

Troublemakers At Work is holding an online public meeting at 7:30pm on Wednesday 26 June. Register now The surge in strikes which began in 2021 has declined from its peak, but strikes remain at higher levels than before. We saw some good wins, while other disputes ended with poor deals or fizzled out. The train drivers’ and junior doctors’ disputes, along with many smaller strikes, continue. There has been no real breakthrough and the impact on union membership and organisation has been uneven. All this is happening in the context of big political issues like Gaza and climate? What can we learn from the strike wave? What kind of organisations and perspectives do we need to transform our unions? How is the election shaping industrial struggle? How do we build resistan...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USyXTa4W9dw

The Drums of War are Banging in Europe by Miguel Urban, Eric Toussaint and Paul Murphy Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair These weeks see the end of the term for an ineffectual European legislature which served during the worst pandemic of this century, during Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, and with it, the outbreak of a war on European soil that evokes the worst memories of the world wars of the last century. And as we witness the televised genocide of the Palestinian people, it appears that the international system of liberal governance seems to be collapsing like a house of cards. The next parliamentary term is unlikely to improve the continent and world, but instead will accelerate the most damaging processes: the rise of the far right, remilitarisation, the retur...

06/07/2024 Revolution's Newsstand Striking hotel workers, 1913. ‘Hotel Workers Battling in New York Against all the Forces of Reaction’ by Frank Pease from Solidarity. Vol. 4 No. 5. January 25, 1913. I.W.W. Influence Predominating. (Special to Solidarity.) New York, Jan. 17. The International Hotel Workers’ Union, an organization of hotel and restaurant workers with a membership of 25,000, has been on strike in the city of New York for the past week. The strike was called to protest against certain conditions that prevail in this industry. These conditions are: insufficient pay, long hours, poor food, unsanitary conditions where these workers eat, where their clothes are stored during work hours, toilet, etc., and the intervention of the employment shark between the workers and...

Culture is a fundamental field of battle in the necessary transformation, without which revolutions are impossible, of the working class from a ‘class in itself’ to a ‘class for itself’. ‘Artistic’ vehicles like film dominate the presentation of dominant ideas today. Previously, it was theater. Moissaye Olgin looks at the state of artistic production and presents these seven theses for the establishment of a workers’ theater in the U.S. ‘For a Workers’ Theatre’ by Moissaye Olgin from the Daily Worker Saturday Supplement. Vol. 4 No. 68 & 74. April 2 & 9, 1927. “Why necessarily a workers’ theatre? Why not a better theatre for all?” The question has been raised wherever the theatre came up for discussion in so-called radical intellectual circles. The theatre as it exists is s...