Editorial

In response to an alleged ‘terrorist plot to bomb aircraft flying to the US’ on August 10, Heathrow was effectively closed down and other British airports disrupted: impeccable timing from the point of view of imperialism. It was a major, if temporary, diversion from Israel’s faltering and politically disastrous criminal assault on Lebanon.

 

Gilbert Achcar was interviewed by Andrew Kennedy on August 1

Israel’s goal is very clear and was stated from the beginning. The July 12 operation was seized upon as a pretext to launch an offensive that had also very obviously been in preparation for a long time. The goal, of course, was to obtain Hezbollah’s destruction.

 

Roland Rance argues that Israel’s war against Hezbollah in Lebanon has strategic aims far beyond that country. As the US invasion of Iraq was both about oil and broader geo-political issues, so this war is both about water, the break-up of Lebanon and the destabilisation of the region. However, it is a war that Israel cannot win.

 

Piers Mostyn analyses the state of the three main British political parties as they fight for the same narrow ground.

 

Fred Leplat analyses the state of the trade unions in Britain and points to some positive moves by those prepared to fight New Labour’s neo-liberal policies.

 

The dilemmas of British Nationalism

David Coen examines the recent resurgence of the St George Cross and asks what this tells us about the change in working class attitudes to the British State.

 

Following the heated debate on ‘the rise of China’, we are now witnessing a rise of Chinese nationalism. While old Chinese nationalism between 1840-1949 was a legitimate response to foreign aggression and popular aspirations for national independence, today it is entirely different. Au Loong Yu discusses the debates.

 

Ernie Tate joined the Canadian section of the Fourth International in the 1950s and in the mid-1960s was assigned by the International to help build the movement in Britain. Here he discusses with Chris Brooks the task of building solidarity.

 

Online petition

Many of us signed, two years ago, a protest against the exclusion of Heloisa Helena from the PT, the Brazilian Workers Party. Today, Heloisa has become the presidential candidate of the new Party of Socialism and Liberty (PSOL).

 

Review

By Mike Davis, Verso, 2006, £15.99

In 1900 London was the largest city in the world at just under six and a half million inhabitants, followed by New York, Paris, Berlin and Chicago. Reaching a peak of 8.6 million in 1939, it is now either twentieth or seventeenth, depending on how you count it.

 

Review

Directed by Ken Loach

Our film is a little step in the British confronting their imperialist history. Maybe if we tell the truth about the past we can tell the truth about the present. - Ken Loach

 

Review

Selected writings by Celia Hart

Revolutionary Cuba has long been a beacon for revolutionaries of various political traditions: but for over twenty years from the late 1960s to the early 1990s its economic and military dependence upon the Soviet Union resulted in a visible avoidance by many of its supporters of any explicit discussion of the politics of Stalinism.

 

Review

by Aubrey Meyer - published by Green Books for the Schumacher Society, first published 2000, £5.00

Aubrey Meyer is a musician. But over a decade ago he swapped his violin for a computer and threw himself into finding a solution to the looming threat of global heating. This book is about his quest.

 

In this article, based on a talk given to the Brecht Forum, home to the New York Marxist School in January 2006, Cliff Conner discusses his recent book, A Peoples’ History of Science, published by Nation.