>The left seems to be always in the
>mode of resisting stuff when bombs are dropping or American lives are
>being lost. What can we do to really challenge the system?
<snip>
>Protests are nice, but we need to raise the stakes if we are serious about
>stopping the war machine....
***** Eight-hour general strike in Italy
By Peter Schwarz in Florence 17 April 2002
Large parts of Italy came to a standstill yesterday, when 13 million workers followed a call by the three main union federations for an eight-hour general strike. It was the first such national stoppage in Italy for twenty years. The entire transport sector, most public services and large parts of the private sector were on strike....
<http://www.wsws.org/articles/2002/apr2002/ital-a17.shtml> *****
***** Venezuela: Not a Banana-Oil Republic after All
by Gregory Wilpert April 15, 2002
It looks like Venezuela is not just another banana-oil republic after all. Many here feared that with the April 11 coup attempt against President Hugo Chavez, Venezuela was being degraded to being just another country that is forced to bend to the powerful will of the United States. The successful counter-coup of April 14, though, which reinstated Chavez, proved that Venezuela is a tougher cookie than the coup planners thought....
<http://www.zmag.org/content/LatinAmerica/wilpertcounter.cfm> *****
David Walsh, "A New Stage in the World Class Struggle: November-December 1995 -- French Workers in Revolt," <http://www.wsws.org/news/1995/dec1995/reven.shtml>.
Bill Haywood, "The General strike" (1911), <http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/hist_texts/gs_bill_haywood.html>.
Rosa Luxemburg, "The Mass Strike" (1906), <http://www.marxists.org/archive/luxembur/works/1906/mass-str/>.
US leftists have a _long_ way to go, as the presence of leftists is insignificant in the labor movement today. -- Yoshie
* Calendar of Events in Columbus: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html> * Anti-War Activist Resources: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/activist.html> * Student International Forum: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osu.edu/students/CJP/>