Political Affairs extends to all of our readers our best wishes for the New Year of struggle against the anti-working-class policies of the Bush administration. January is devoted to a variety of national and international struggles on the political agenda.
Featured this month is a special interview with Fathi El-Fadl of the Sudanese Communist Party who talks about the crisis in Darfur and the path to democracy and peace. Accompanying this interview, Ron Bunyon gives some historical and political context to the crisis in Darfur.
In other areas, Adam Tenney tackles the gay marriage issue, seeing it as a right and a choice that should not divide the gay community against itself. Richard Grassl points to trade and travel as the basis of friendship with Cuba. Wadi’h Halabi identifies key sources of capitalist stability in the current economic crisis. Giuliano Cappellini, of the Communist Party of Refoundation in Italy, discusses the workers’ struggle to save their pension system, mirroring our own struggle to defend Social Security. The sources and consequences of global child labor are the main topics of Don Sloan’s insightful article. Joel Wendland identifies key aspects of the global fight against AIDS. Finally, writer Farnoosh Moshiri tells a tale of progressive activists under attack by followers of the fundamentalist regime in Iran.
Please send us your thoughts, comments, criticisms and praise.
Happy Holidays,
The Editors
Table of Contents
Don't Let Bush Rob Social Security (illustration by Victor Velez)
Departments
Letters
Discussion
Socialist Market: A Mixed Bag
By Joe Sims
Reply to Sims
Erwin Marquit
Commentary
Torturer General Appointed
By Joel Wendland
War, debt, oil, imperialism and monopolization are at the root of the stability of the US despite high unemployment, falling wages and skyrocketing costs.
The CP of Sudan has a long history of struggle against tyranny. Fathi El-Fadl takes us behind the crisis.
Darfur Dying
By Ron Bunyon, Jr.
The Darfur genocide comes as the struggle for autonomy in Darfur and the united democratic struggle against the fundamentalist dictatorship are growing.
Privatizers and Profiteers: Italians Struggle To Save Social Security
By Giuliano Cappellini
The Italian pension system, the pride of Italy’s working-class movement, is being systematically dismantled by the right-wing Berlusconi government. Can the Italian working class save it?
In the era of capitalist triumphalism the brutality of child labor and extreme poverty are on the rise globally.
Turn On The Lights
Curly Cohen of Affordable Power to the People discusses the struggle of seniors, immigrant communities, and working people in Chicago to have affordable utilities.
Putting Profits First: Bush And The Global AIDS Crisis
By Joel Wendland
After having set the global AIDS fight back decades, will the US step up to its responsibility to help fight the disease?
A People’s Poet
By E. San Juan, Jr.
Pablo Neruda's poetry has long-inspired struggles for democracy, liberation and socialism.
