SWP Dayschool

cork | anti-capitalism | event notice Wednesday February 18, 2009 19:11 by Joe Moore - Socialist Workers Party mapuche at eircom dot net 087-2994796

The Cork SWP will hold a day school entitled, "Socialism and the World Today" on Saturday 7th March 2009 in the Victoria Hotel, Patrick St between 2pm and 5pm. It will consist of two sessions, " Capitalism isn't working....What's the Answer" introduced by Kieran Allen and "Imperialism, Islam and Resistance" introduced by Marnie Holborrow.

While billions of taxpayers money is given to bail out the banks, public sector workers are being hit with a massive pay cut, in the form of a pension levy. Hundreds of workers in Bus Eireann and Dublin Bus are set to loose their jobs. Workers in companies like Waterford Glass, Dell, Bulmers are amongst tens of thousands who are to be thrown on the scrap heap. It is clear capitalism isn't working.
This system is built not on cooperation but on ruthless competition between rival highly privileged minorities who monopolise the means that are necessary for production-the tools, the machines, the oil fields, the communications systems, the land.
What motivates these minorities is not the satisfaction of human need. It is the pressure to compete and keep ahead of other capitalists.
The key to keeping ahead is making as much profit as possible.
There is however an alternative -socialism. Under socialism decision making on the basis of competition between rival groups of capitalists will be replaced by a genuine democracy where the mass of the people will democratically decide what the economic priorities should be and work together to plan how to achieve these.
These and other ideas will be discussed in the first session, introduced by Kieran Allen.

The recent Israeli onslaught against the people of Gaza, resulted in over 1,300 deaths, thousands of injured and the majority relying on humanitarian aid for survival. The Israeli state committed war crimes in Gaza. Yet these brutal war criminals are systematically rewarded by the US and the EU.
Liberal apologists for Israel try to justify the assault by stirring up fears about Islam and Hamas. Yet Hamas is the elected government of the whole of Palestine. The western powers who preach about democracy in the Middle East have never accepted their election.
Hamas uses religious imagery and socialists would undoubtedly disagree with many of their policies. But they are as much a legitimate national resistance movement as the Irish republican movement which fought a war of independence in 1919-1921.
The so called "war on terror" has also resulted in millions of deaths in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Somalia. In order to justify these crimes, Islam is attacked as a backward religion. However we say that Islamophobia is just another form of racism, used by the imperial powers to justify their actions.
"Imperialism, Islam and Resistance" will be introduced by Marnie Holborrow.