AROUND THE WORLD
United States Against the current AGAINST THE CURRENT, a new journal of revolutionary socialist political analysis, has been launched as a joint project of three US socialist groups. The first issue of the new ATC includes an interview with Ricardo Pascoe, a leader of the Mexican Partido Revolucionario de los Trabajadores (PRT - Mexican section of the Fourth International), on the crisis of the debt and the growth of the Mexican workers' movement; an analysis of recent strikes of American workers against wage cuts and other "concessionary" demands by corporations; an essay by Marxist feminist author Johanna Brenner on the theoretical and practical perspectives of feminists in the peace movement; and an address to a human rights convention by Professor Israel Shahak, chairman of the Israeli League for Human and Civil Rights, on the apartheid-like character of Israeli society today.
The new Against the Current is described by its editors as intended "not in any sense as a party organ, but to provide a forum for the broadest possible debate and discussion within the left. The resources we need to develop new theory and fresh interpretations already exist among the movement activists, the organizers and the serious scholars of the left."
The groups launching the magazine are the International Socialists, Workers Power and Socialist Unity. Socialist Unity is a group of supporters of the Fourth International; the International Socialists represent the "Third Camp" current within the revolutionary socialist left; Workers Power includes a number of former members of the International Socialists, as well as some supporters of the Fourth International.
In the past eight months these groups have been exploring their areas of political agreement, disagreement and perspectives on labor social movements. These discussions led all three groups to the conclusion that they should join forces to launch a new revolutionary socialist organization. A regroupment convention, intended to fuse the three groups as well as other individuals and local collectives who have expressed interest in revolutionary socialist unity, will take place
International Viewpoint 24 March 1986 in Chicago at the end of March 1986.
While in no way posing as a vanguard party - the kind of posturing which has helped discredit the small US revolutionary left and has contributed to the distortion of its politics - the three groups and others believe that this fusion can reinforce the work of socialist activists in building a rank-and-file left wing in the US labor movement; strengthen our voices in building solidarity with all struggles for freedom, from the Nicaraguan and Salvadoran revolutions to Polish Solidarity; and offer a positive alternative to the demoralization and leftine disintegration of the revolutionary
The editorial board of Against the Current is also organizing a broader editorial advisory group, which will help to guide the magazine, build it and write for it. In this way, it is hoped that the journal will become a genuine partnership that provides a vehicle for a relatively broad spectrum of socialists - whether members or non-members of the sponsoring organization - who share a commitment to revolution, democracy and the rebuilding of the labor and left-wing movements in America from the ground up.
David Finkel (Subscriptions to Against the Current are 15 US dollars surface mail and 25 US dollars air mail and may be purchased from ATC 17300 Woodward, Detroit MI 48203.) Britain Miners' support demonstration THE FIGHTING spirit of the miners' strike was very much alive at the national Justice for Mineworkers demonstration on March 2. Eight thousand miners, women from the pit communities and their supporters came across the coalfields to mark the anniversary of the strike and to show their support for the 500-plus sacked miners, for the dozen jailed miners and for the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) whose funds are still in the hands of the receivers.
Tony Benn, a leader of the left wing of the Labour Party and a Member of Parliament (MP), told the rally about the Justice for Mineworkers bill recently presented to parliament, which is built round the successful NUM resolution to the 1985 Trades
Union Congress (TUC) and Labour Party conferences. Peter Heathfield, general secretary of the NUM called on the trade-union leadership to break those in struggle now as the Tories seek to destroy trade unionism.
Dave Nellist, MP and Jeremy Corbyn, MP both attacked the labour leadership's obsession with witch hunting socialists in the Labour Party, while miners remained sacked and printers were fighting for their jobs at Wapping (site of the scab-run plant owned by press magnate, Rupert Murdock). Both Sean Geraghty (EEPTU - Enginering, Electrical and Plumbing Trade Union, London press branch) and Ginger Wilson, Sunday Times Father of the Chapel (FOC -shop stewards convenor) compared Wapping with the miners' strike.
The demonstration was followed by a highly successful concert at the Albert Hall, where £10,000 was raised for the national solidarity fund.
For further information on the campaign write to Ed Fredenburgh, 49 Milner Square, London, N.1.
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Now! Continued from page 28. of state represented in CARICOM [Caribbean Community] that they reiterate the demand made by their foreign ministers in St. Kitts in May 1985 for the end of the US blockade against Nicaragua and for resistance to the pressure from Washington aimed at dividing the islands of the Western Caribbean on the question of the commercialization of banana production.
This assembly demands an end to the violation of human rights in Central America and the Caribbean.
This assembly offers its support to the South African peoples in their fight against the shameful apartheid system imposed by the racist regime in Pretoria...
Since our last meeting 19 months ago in Havana, there have been concrete advances in the struggles of the peoples of the region, as in Haiti, and a new situation is taking shape that demands of us a greater degree of unity, better communications and more effective cooperation...