International

Left faces crackdown after vibrant G20 protests

We terrified the establishment at the G20 Summit in Hamburg. Now, they’re fighting back.

The Scottish Socialist Party was there — a handful of activists clutching flags, leading a demonstration of over 100,000 people through the streets of Hamburg in opposition to the G20, the last major demonstration at the end of a week which was packed with them.

Germany’s second-largest city hosted protest camps, rallies, parties and blockades in early July as activists both local and international mobilised against that summit of world leaders, held provocatively within a stone’s throw of the city’s proudly radical and autonomist districts.

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SSP Executive Statement on Venezuela

The Scottish Socialist Party’s executive has released the following statement with regard to the ongoing political and social struggle in Venezuela.

The Bolivarian Revolution, by massively redistributing wealth and power in Venezuela, has delivered tremendous gains for poor and working class people in just under two decades. The Scottish Socialist Party is a proud supporter of this unfinished political process.

The US and UK governments have recently leapt at the opportunity to condemn the Venezuelan government under the façade of promoting human rights. They hold the government responsible for over 150 deaths this year, absolving Venezuela’s right-wing opposition and private business chiefs of responsibility for deliberately escalating the country’s severe economic and political crisis.

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No G20, no UK – Scotland goes to Hamburg

by Connor Beaton

The Scottish Socialist Party is proudly supporting and participating in the massive mobilisation against the G20 Summit in Hamburg, Germany this weekend.

Thousands of people from outwith Germany – a handful of SSP members among them – have responded to the call of Hamburg-based organisers for a bold, broad and borderless display of resistance to the latest international demagogues convention.

Summit of repression

When the likes of May, Trump, Putin and Erdoğan meet in Hamburg, they will be a stone’s throw from the city’s traditionally autonomist and progressive Sternschanze and St Pauli districts, where locals view the imposition of the summit as provocative, undemocratic and violent.

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Scottish Propaganda fails to mask Israel’s Crimes

by Pádraig Durnin

Israeli Ambassador Mark Regev is to be welcomed to the Scottish Parliament today as an honoured guest of Presiding Officer Ken Macintosh. Regev will be greeted outside by a protest organised by the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign (SPSC) and the Association of Palestinian Communities in Scotland (APCS).

The appointment of Mark Regev as its Ambassador to the UK in 2015 marked a conscious decision by Israel to place hasbara (public diplomacy, in essence, overseas propaganda) at the heart of Israel’s diplomatic efforts abroad. Unlike his predecessors, the Australian-born Regev was no career diplomat but had made his name as Chief Spokesman for the Prime Minister of Israel. A hasbarist extraordinaire,

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Trump and the U.S. Election and What Lies Ahead

by Robert W McChesney in the US

For the past eight weeks, almost everyone on the American left—or to use the vernacular, the progressive community—has been addressing the Trump election, the impending Republican total control over the federal government, and how best to resist it.

The fascist currents running in Trump’s agenda and program are not difficult to locate: full throttle jingoism and militarism; nods to white supremacists and bigots; minimal interest in civil liberties or the rule of law; contempt for science when it interferes with political and economic ambitions; routine dismissal of all criticism from the news media or otherwise as “lies” combined with routine outrageous lying; contempt for the dispossessed and blind worship at the alter of wealth and privilege.

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Salih Muslim, PYD co-chair visits Scotland

Report by Sean Baillie

Salih Muslim, Co-chair of the Democratic Union Party (PYD) is in Scotland this week, meeting a cross party group of MSPs – set up to support the Kurdish people and their struggle for human rights and a democratic voice.

Speaking to a crowd of over 100 Scottish solidarity activists and families from the local Kurdish community in Glasgow, Mr Muslim spoke of the similarities that can be drawn between the people of Scotland and Kurdistan. From our rich cultural histories, to our modern day movements that aim to achieve equality and democratic autonomy.

He also spoke about the ongoing conflict in Syria, and how the autonomous Northern Syrian federation which his party helped to create.

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British Democracy on Trial

UK Supreme Court rules on Brexit Article 50

colin_foxBritain’s decision to leave the EU is being scrutinised today by the highest constitutional court in the land. And in doing so the case has exposed the sham that is UK democracy, writes Colin Fox.

Eleven unelected Supreme Court ‘Justices’ will rule on whether the UK Government has the legal right to use autocratic, monarchical ‘Crown Powers’ to override an elected Parliament’s right to impede the wishes of the British people expressed in a democratic referendum.

It sounds like a script from an episode of ‘Yes Minister’ or ‘The Thick Of It’.

Judgment

To add insult to democratic injury the Judges insist they are above politics and always make their rulings impartially based only on matters of law – matters only passed into law by Parliament and therefore political by their very nature.

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A Letter To America

Roz PatersonWe’ve all had friends that we haven’t seen in a while, who have gone off the rails – Roz Paterson remembers her radical America, and offers a comradely pep-talk.

Dear America,

clinton_trumpOh dear, America! How are you feeling this morning? Actually, we in Scotland know exactly how you’re feeling! We know all about the regret, the pain, and the nausea that comes the morning after the night before and, believe me, we are holding your hand across the Atlantic.

Don’t listen to the ones who tell you that you’re an embarrassment and a pariah. We’ve heard it all before too – after the Brexit vote, after the No vote in our Independence Referendum,

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