Class

In late May, I was invited to a meeting of the Edge Fund, which is attempting to create an activist-led or -advised grant-making body in the UK, breaking down some of the inequalities that exist even in radical-minded philanthropy. The discussion was lively, and the openness of the Edge Fund to activist input was dizzying in its latitude.

Much of current UK activism depends on grants from bodies like the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust (the major donor behind the PN-initiated…

The 30 November strikes by 24 unions in Britain (the biggest for several generations), the protests in Greece and Spain, the global wave of Occupy camps, and the student protests are all caused by the way that governments are reacting to the financial crisis of 2008.

Governments could have chosen to respond by tightening regulation on reckless financial institutions, by redistributing wealth and power and by protecting the poor and the vulnerable from the crisis. Instead, governments…

When London was experiencing the aftermath of looting, Edinburgh commenced its annual festival season. But the political backdrop to the explosion of sometimes nihilistic, often materialistic anger and frustration vented in England was not forgotten.

Public service union UNISON brought a “festival against cuts” to the Edinburgh Festival this year. “Mobilise, The Anti-cuts Festival” was held in an attic space in Edinburgh’s West End, hosting free events with artists and performers…

I was in Hackney when I got the text, on my way to an organising meeting on local responses to the riots/uprisings. Police vans were cruising up and down Dalston High Street, nervous shopkeepers were standing in doorways and hipster NGO/graphic designer types were sinking pints outside a trendy pub. “Deptford Community defence meeting outside Ladbrokes on the high street @ 8.30 – to put out fires should they occur.”

I made a U-turn and got there early. I used to live in Hackney but…

Thanks for your considered letter last issue. Yes, we can certainly agree that we should struggle for an end to class division: maybe we still disagree about the need for a proletarian dictatorship. Who knows?

Trying to create a nonviolent revolution, like working for Swaraj in India, carries risks. That we might end up with civil war is one of these risks. Given the atrocities of war, everywhere, I sincerely hope PN continues to preach nonviolent revolution.

Just over a year ago (PN 2497), we suggested there was a convergence of views of Martin Luther King Jr and Malcolm X in their later years, in particular their growing convictions that overcoming class oppression was central to black liberation.

We quoted King in 1966: “something is wrong with capitalism… there must be a better distribution of wealth, and maybe America must move towards a Democratic Socialism”; and 1967: “capitalism was built on the exploitation and suffering of black…

On 1 May, former Prisme workers re-launched themselves as Discovery Packaging and Design (DPD) after the “long hard slog” of a seven-week occupation (see PN 2508). A week later, David Taylor from DPD told me how business was looking promising for the new company, which employs half of the original workforce of 12. There are potential customers in the pipeline and an open day was planned, aiming at small- to medium-sized clients from the engineering, confectionery and whisky industries.…

When the owners of Prisme Packaging in Dundee decided to shut up shop, they were hoping that their employees would go quietly. They certainly weren’t expecting them to refuse to leave and to occupy their former place of work!

But that’s exactly what 12 workers did in response to management’s shock announcement on 4 March that the firm was closing down with immediate effect and without redundancy pay.

The fact that this was a non-unionised workplace may have something to do with…

Bush-backers beware! Michael Moore, filmmaker, author and ruthless critic of North American culture and politics, is back with his caustic new book, Stupid White Men.

Stupid White Men is brimming with satirical wit and cunning condemnation. Moore knocks every dubious character in the US's political cast, from the “Thief-in-Chief”, George W Bush, to Bill Clinton, “one of the best Republican Presidents [the US has] ever had”.

But Moore doesn't just rail…