Free Joe Glenton Meeting June 10th

Group: Oxford Stop the War
Event: Public Meeting - Free Joe glenton!
Details: SPEAKER: JOHN TIPPLE (CASE WORKER FOR PRIVATE JOE GLENTON)
Date: 10th JUNE
Time: 7.30pm
Venue: TOWN HALL, ST ALDATES, OXFORD
Email: oxfordstopthewar@hotmail.com

Oxford Stop the War Coalition Question Time

Oxford Stop the War Coalition invites you to a

General Election Question Time

Tuesday 20th April 7.30pm

Oxford Town Hall, St Aldates

Featuring local General Election candidates. 

Confirmed so far candidates from Labour, Liberal Democrats, Green Party and Ukip. Also invited- the candidate from the Conservative Party.

The panel with be joined by Sami Ramadami from the Stop the War Coalition.

All welcome. Please come and put your questions to the panel.

oxfordstopthewar@hotmail.com

Letter from America No 18

One Year of Obama

Barack Obama has now been in office for over a year, and, given the heightened expectations around his ‘Hope and Change’ rhetoric, it is not surprising to find his presidency falling short of expectations. I’m going to leave aside the hysterical criticism of Obama from the rabid right – these people think anybody to the left of Ronald Reagan is a socialist, and just cannot get over the fact that a Black Democrat is president. No, there are more realistic reasons for opposing Obama than those offered by right-wing conspiracy theorists.

Obama’s commitment to sending more troops to Afghanistan was a blow to those on the left who had faith in him. It was, however, hardly a betrayal, as he had constantly said he would do so during his election campaign. Although Obama seems to have genuinely opposed the Iraq war from the beginning (unlike most of the Democrats in Congress, who voted for it at the time), in his debates with John McCain he criticised it not on principle, but because it was the ‘wrong war,’ distracting the US from what, presumably, is the ‘right war’ in Afghanistan. What is more worrying is the depth of Obama’s commitment to the ‘right war’. The 30,000 troops he committed late last year was the MAXIMUM number recommended by the generals. In other words, Obama is almost more militaristic than the military. Since Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize last October, the US military presence Afghanistan has become bigger than that in Iraq.

Obama is also moving to the right on the economy. The recession forced him to break long-standing free-market taboos by pumping money into the economy, which was a welcome step. However, in his State of the Union address in January he promised a spending freeze and was positively Thatcheresque in his praise of small businesses as the key to job creation.

Obama’s biggest failure, however, is in healthcare reform. Despite the claims made by Republicans that they are a Trojan Horse for socialism, Obama’s proposals are incredibly modest, focusing on reform of the private health insurance companies, rather than the creation of an NHS-style comprehensive public system. Even these cautious reforms have been watered down by conservative Democrats in Congress;  the House of Representatives passed an amendment effectively banning abortion from being paid for by health insurance, while the Senate removed the idea of the ‘public option’, a government-run scheme that would compete with (but not replace) private health insurance. What is left of the ‘reforms’ might even make the system worse, as the 40 million Americans currently uninsured will be mandated to buy insurance through the very private companies that are the cause of the whole mess that is U.S. health ‘care’.

Obama and the Democrats have proceeding with amazing caution for a party that controls the presidency and has huge majorities in both houses of Congress. From day one, Obama has preached ‘bipartisanship’, despite the fact that the Republicans have vowed to do everything they can to disrupt his agenda. Their tactics of using delaying measures in Congress alongside corporate-funded, fake-grass-roots demonstrations have been remarkably effective. Rather than respond by mobilizing their own supporters, the Democrats have obsessed about parliamentary procedure, and attempt to smooth-talk the mythical ‘moderate’ Republicans into voting for reform by removing any measures that might offend the big insurance companies.

It need not have been this way. Obama swept to victory in 2008 on a wave of enthusiasm and the hard work put in by a movement of new, young activists. Some people, such as Michael Moore and err… me, wrongly believed that this movement might take on its own momentum, and push Obama to the left despite himself. What we underestimated was how far ‘Obama the movement’ was a top-down affair with the sole aim of getting Obama elected. It was demobilized as soon as he was in the White House, apart from the odd mass email from HQ urging supporters to write to their congressman. Also demobilized was any kind of independent movement that might have held Obama’s feet to the fire. The anti-war movement, already divided, was undermined when the pro-Democrat section decided to pack up for the duration of the election and put all its hopes in an Obama presidency. This strategy has been repaid in drone attacks and civilian deaths in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

As has been the case throughout U.S. history, the real movements for change are coming from outside the Democratic Party. Last year’s massive march in Washington for same-sex marriage rights was mobilized by a coalition of grassroots organizations, including socialists, and was opposed by Democratic politicians and even the mainstream gay rights organizations until they realized they could not stop it. And it had Lady Gaga as a speaker, which is something the Christian Right will never have.

 

Oxford Radical Forum

http://oxfordradicalforum.wordpress.com/

OXFORD RADICAL FORUM 2010!

Comrades and travellers,

We are excited to announce the current programme for the Oxford Radical Forum 2010, which will be taking place Friday – Sunday, 5 – 7 March.

Once again Wadham College will play host to a broad range of critical debates and discussions on the radical left, with leading speakers, commentars, activists and academics. As always the event is entirely FREEand we are also pleased to announce a Forum dinner on the Friday night, and an evening social on the Saturday night.

We hope to see many of you at Wadham over the course of the Forum and hope that you will join us in making this another successful and fruitful event.

oxfordradicalforum@googlemail.com

Getting to Wadham College: http://www.wadham.ox.ac.uk/images/files/wadhmaprev.pdf

<< We view re-energising popular discussion and action on the left a necessity. Our belief in the need for an event in Oxford bringing together progressive politics stems both from a conviction in the continued and critical relevancy of Marxist and leftist ideas and theory and from the sad and persistent weakness of focused or organised progressive political organisation locally and nationally, despite such pressing conditions of political and economic crisis, and despite the very many who would under more favourable circumstances participate in such interventions. Therefore we are hosting again this forum which will continue to address these issues and draw in individuals from the two universities in Oxford, the city and beyond to consider critically ideas about social progress and transformation. Ultimately ORF seeks to contribute to a critical culture of left debate, theory and action, as well as to cement political and intellectual links between individuals and groups who will have a basis upon which to work in the future. >>

CURRENT TIMETABLE

(NB: All venues will be around the Ho Chi Minh Quad in Wadham College. The exact room will be clearly inidcated on the day.)

- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - -

FRI

2:30 – 3:45

:: DIRECT ACTION WORKSHOP

With the ‘Seeds For Change’ collective.

4:30 – 6:00

:: ENGLAND’S POSTIMPERIAL MELANCHOLIA

Paul Gilroy (author, There Aint no Black in the Union Jack; Anthony Giddens Prof., London School of Economics).

6:45 – 8:15

:: THE BLACK AND THE RED: MARXISM & ANARCHISM TODAY

Paul Blackledge (author, Reflections on the Marxist Theory of History; Leeds Metropolitan University); Ruth Kinna (author, William Morris: The Art of Socialism; editor, Anarchist Studies; Loughborough University).

8:30-…

:: FORUM DINNER

All Forum attendees welcome…

Be part of building a network of activists to fight for jobs, solidarity and public services!!

Oxford Right To Work Campaign meeting

Thursday 4^th March 7.30 pm,

Friends Meeting House, St Giles, Oxford

Speakers:

Tracey Rogers, PCS

Shao Dow, Love Music Hate Racism

Dave McGrath, CWU

Plus speakers from: FBU, UCU, student activist from Sussex

Oxford Right to Work Meeting 4th March

Unite to fight job and public service cuts!! Fight racism, defend the planet!!

Oxford Right To Work Campaign public meeting. Activist speakers from public and private sector unions, students and anti-racists, Peoples Charter etc...

Thursday 4th March 7.30

Friends Meeting House, St Giles, Oxford

Come along and help build a network of activists to fight the cuts. We need to fight the cuts, whoever wins the next election.

Right to Work Conference

A conference of resistance and solidarity
Saturday 30 January, Central Hall, Oldham Street, Manchester 11.30am-5pm

Fight for every job
Organise to stop the cuts
Defend services and pensions
Unite the public and private sectors
Demand a million green jobs
Jobs not bombs
Defend migrant workers – jobs for all

Speakers include:
Mark Serwotka (PCS), Sally Hunt (UCU), Tony Kearns (CWU), Jeremy Dear (NUJ), Jerry Hicks (Unite), Mark Smith (former Vestas worker), Paul Brandon (Unite bus worker), Nahella Ashraf (chair, Greater Manchester Stop the War), Dave Chapple (Chair National Shop Stewards Network), Clara Osagiede (RMT cleaners’ secretary), Kevin Courtney (NUT national executive, personal capacity), Dot Gibson (General Secretary, National Pensioners Convention) and speakers from the Fujitsu strike, Royal Mail dispute, Brighton bins dispute, BA cabin crew, Superdrug… and many more.

Supported by UCU nationally and over 55 union branches so far.

There’s a deep economic crisis – and the bosses and the politicians want us to pay for it. It’s bad now, and an avalanche of cuts is coming after the election. But there’s also a fightback, and we need more of that.
Whenever there’s resistance, then we need solidarity. Many working people rallied round the postal workers’ national fight. And many have also backed the Leeds bins workers, the BA workers, the Superdrug workers and other groups who have taken action. This conference is designed to bring together those networks of resistance and to make them stronger.

This is a brilliant chance to learn from one another and spread the lessons of the fightback.

It’s not just for trade unionists, and it won’t just be about workplace struggle. We are having speakers and workshops on issues like the war in Afghanistan, anti-racist battles, decent housing, and so on. We want students, unemployed workers, anti-war activists, pensioners, campaigners for green jobs, housing activists and anti-racist activists to come.

It won’t be a talking shop. We want to organise initiatives from the conference. For example, some people have suggested a day of action around welfare ‘reform’ or a coordinated push to unionise in specific areas, or action to defend and organise migrant workers.

We want to people to bring their own ideas to the conference and to go away with stronger organisation.

Workshops include:
How can we stop the jobs massacre?
Fighting privatisation, defending public services
Don’t let them rob our pensions!
Jobs not bombs
After Copenhagen, how can we win a million climate jobs?
“The lost generation”? – students and young workers fighting back
Against racism and the scapegoating of migrant workers
How can workers get a real political voice?
Defying the anti-union laws
The welfare reform agenda – fighting for our rights

http://sites.google.com/site/righttoworkconference/