Educate ANIMATE Organise

Well it’s “bliadhna mhath ur” to all our readers. Now we have a real Tory government, the type of rule that Blair really wanted, it must be time for us to support and study the actions of comrades world wide to crack the Tory–Liberal Orange Book ideologues within the next twelve months. The title above is inspired from RSA animations which have provided short ten minute animations to aid understanding of Marxist critiques of the god-awful mess financial capital has got us into. But more on this later.

Clear the Hogmanay headaches with a glance at this study on what the gamblers are punting your pensions on now. Having dabbled in this field under Thatcher’s umbrella they are spreading their crazy ideas worldwide. “Systemic Danger? The Effects of the Financial Crisis on Private Pensions”, is a study by Richard Detje about the risks of private pension schemes and available at www.transform-network.net/uploads/media/Detje_FinancalCrisis.pdf

For further unrelenting punishment the following is available from a European left conference: Strategic Perspectives of the European Left, “Why the Crisis Seems to Favour the Right Rather than the Left in Europe”. The recent economic crisis, among other things, has shown the serious crisis of European Social Democracy, as well as the inability of ‘our’ Left (with some

interesting exceptions) to increase its influence in society. This can be seen not only from the fact that the agenda for facing the crisis is set by the conservative political forces in Europe, but also by the election results for the European Parliament. Thus the question arises with urgency how the Left in Europe can develop the capacity of becoming an effective counter hegemonic force. The debate, which started out with a general assessment of the political geography, was followed by a number of thematic focuses and case studies on different countries such as the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Norway, Spain and Sweden. Videos, papers and PowerPoint presentations can be found at: www.rosalux.de/fileadmin/rls_uploads/pdfs/Standpunkte/policy_paper/Policy-Paper_4-2010.pdf

David Harvey has recently published “The Enigma of Capital and the Crisis of Capitalism”. But it is not the book I am directing you to in the website but to the animation of a lecture Harvey delivered with regards to the main theme of his book. As you can see from the address it is on youtube so you can direct colleagues to it where other Marxist delights can be found. Just the job for students awakening from their slumbers. All together now “Educate, Agitate, Kick the Tories Out.” Ah, Echoes from the past; don’t think the young Millibands did loud street demos. Ed has certainly denied the students support thrice. www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOP2V_np2c0