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What's new at Links: Love & revolution; Greece, Nepal, Philippines, Thailand, Kent State, May Day, Obama * * * *For more reliable delivery of new content, please subscribe free to Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal at http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=343373 * You can also follow Links on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LinksSocialism or on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10865397643 Visit and bookmark http://links.org.au and add it to your RSS feed (http://links.org.au/rss.xml). If you would like us to consider an article, please send it to [email protected] *Please pass on to anybody you think will be interested in Links. * * * Love and revolution <http://links.org.au/node/1674> By *Nick Southall* [The following speech was presented to the socialist youth group Resistance national conference dinner, held in Thirroul, Australia, on April 24, 2010.] Tonight I will be looking at love as a form of power, a form of work and a form of wealth, as a need, desire, intention and action, and I will be locating our ability to transform social relations in political acts of love. Capitalism poisons our lives with a concentration on consumption, materialism and competition, undermining loving relationships. Yet, alongside the system's violence, exploitation and oppression, there are continuing struggles about who has control over social relations, social cooperation and labour, over whether love is destroyed, suppressed, harnessed to strengthen capital or used to build and extend loving alternatives. * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1674> Greek crisis reveals 'progressive' Europe's reactionary stew <http://links.org.au/node/1671> By *Paul Kellogg* May 3, 2010 -- The bailout of the debt-ridden Greek government seems finally to be complete. The European Union (EU) -- most centrally the French and German treasuries -- along with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) will provide EUR110 billion ($150 billion) in emergency loans. The price for these loans will be high. Along with steep tax increases and cuts in spending, the loans are conditional on a public sector wage freeze being extended through to 2014. * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1671> Asian left parties: `Support the struggle for democracy and social justice in Nepal' <http://links.org.au/node/1669> The following joint statement of solidarity -- initiated by Socialist Alliance, Australia -- has been signed by a number of left and progressive organisations in the Asia-Pacific region. If your organisation would like to sign on, please email [email protected]. On May Day, international workers' day, a huge demonstration of between 500,000-1 million people took place in Kathmandu. Called by the Unified Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist (UCPN-M), people came from all over Nepal to make their voices heard. * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1669> Philippines faces election failure <http://links.org.au/node/1673> By *Reihana Mohideen* May 9, 2010 -- The country faces a possible failure of elections on May 10 due to the inability of the Philippines' elite to ensure a resolution to the political crisis through elections, and the general incompetence of a corruption ridden, elite-controlled, weak state to conduct credible elections, above all one based on a fully automated voting system. * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1673> Philippines left and the 2010 elections: Military rebels in the elections <http://links.org.au/node/1670> By *Reihana Mohideen*, based on an interview with well-known Marxist *Francisco Nemenzo* May 6, 2010 -- An important political development in recent years, a result of the widespread opposition to the government of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo [known in the Philippines as GMA], is the radicalisation of junior officers and soldiers of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), which has drawn a new generation into progressive politics. * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1670> Memories of a participant: Kent & Jackson State, 1970 -- A firestorm they could not contain <http://links.org.au/node/1668> By *Mike Ely* May 4, 2010 -- May 4, 1970. Forty years have passed. It is history now in the eyes of the world. But for me, and many others, it is raw and alive. It always will be. * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1668> Thailand: Land of smoke and mirrors <http://links.org.au/node/1667> By *Justin Alick*, Bangkok, photos by *Nick Nostitz* On the night of April 10, 2010, a distraught group of red-shirted, pro-democracy activists stormed into a Bangkok hospital and demanded that it hand over the bodies of fellow protesters they had witnessed being shot to death by the Royal Thai Army in a bloody military crackdown, which was still in progress. At first they were turned away by the hospital director, citing medical procedures as well as specific regulations that had been handed down by the military regime -- but as more angry protesters arrived, he had no choice but to relent. * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1667> Eyewitness report: Nepal, May 1-4 -- The people besiege a government <http://links.org.au/node/1666> Story and photos by *Jed Brandt* May 3, 2010 -- From here in Kathmandu the monarchy ruled this diverse mountain nation for 200 years. This is where the national elite live, with its political parties, banks and walled compounds. But the streets now belong to the people, and it is this "people's power" movement that they fear. * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1666> Thailand: What Abhisit has really offered; UDD's response <http://links.org.au/node/1664> By *Giles Ji Ungpakorn* May 4, 2010 -- Thailand's Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva trumpeted today that he was taking an important initiative to "solve" the political crisis. He offered to dissolve parliament in September and hold elections on November 14, 2010. Previously he had said that he would not dissolve parliament until December. Yet even this offer was conditional on there being "peace in society". That means that he and his military-backed government can go back on this proposal and claim that conditions were "not yet right" for elections nearer the time. * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1664> Venezuela: 100,000 celebrate May Day <http://links.org.au/node/1662> By *Tamara Pearson* May 2, 2010 -- Venezuelans marched on May 1 to celebrate International Worker's Day. President Hugo Chavez also implemented a 15% wage increase, and the government broadened social security entitlements. * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1662> Europe: Solidarity with the resistance of the Greek workers (updated May 9) <http://links.org.au/node/1661> April 30, 2010* *Massive amounts of money have been injected into the financial system -- US$14 trillion in bailouts in the United States, Britain and the eurozone, $1.4 trillion in new bank loans in China last year -- in an effort to restabilise the world economy. But it remains an open question whether or not these efforts will be enough to produce a sustainable recovery. Growth remains very sluggish in the advanced economies, while unemployment continues to rise. There are fears that a new financial bubble centred this time on China is developing. The protracted character of the crisis -- which is the most severe since the Great Depression -- reflects its roots in the very nature of capitalism as a system. * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1661> From the civil rights movement to Barack Obama <http://links.org.au/node/1660> */Beyond Black & White/** By Manning Marable,** Verso Press, 2009, 319 pages* Review by *Malik Miah* Manning Marable's latest book, /Beyond Black & White/, is an update of a valuable critique of Black and US politics first issued in 1995. He revised it last year, adding new chapters covering the period from 1995 to 2008, including an analysis of the meaning of the election of the first African-American president of the United States, Barack Obama, in November 2008. * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1660> * * * Links seeks to promote the international exchange of information, experience of struggle, theoretical analysis and views of political strategy and tactics within the international left. It is a forum for open and constructive dialogue between active socialists coming from different political traditions. It seeks to bring together those in the international left who are opposed to neoliberal economic and social policies. It aims to promote the renewal of the socialist movement in the wake of the collapse of the bureaucratic model of "actually existing socialism" in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. 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