Straw's wobble

On Monday Jack Straw attacked the media’s coverage of the ‘war against terrorism’. He was peeved that the media had caught the “Kosova wobble” syndrome and was getting cold feet over the Afghan war. Even criticising the government. Straw castigated “a reporting culture which is very, very short-term”, adding: “The other thing is that it lacks memory backwards”.

Quite right, Jack. The mainstream media wants us to forget the bloody history of imperialist intervention - Korea, Vietnam, the Congo, Grenada, etc. The opposite role of the Weekly Worker - which exists to act as the collective memory of the working class.

However, to do this requires resources. In other words, we need money. All the time.

So, I am very pleased to report that this week we not met our £450 monthly target but actually exceeded it by a relatively comfortable margin. Well done, comrades. Special thanks to comrades KL (£30), FG (£20), MO and TB (£15 each) and BN (£10) - leaving us with a surplus of £27.50

This bodes very well for next month’s target. We know you can do it again, comrades.

Robbie Rix

Number 406

Thursday November 1 2001

The Weekly Worker is available from bookshops across the United Kingdom or can be delivered direct to your door by completing our online subscription form.

Anti-war movement
Weekly Worker 406 is available in pdf format as zipped (1.16MB) or unzipped (1.49MB) files	Building for November 18 The SWP is still trying to run things as if they had private property rights. Tina Becker reports on the Stop The War coalition conference Middlesbrough: Class solutions James Bull reports on the anti-war meeting Roots of the Taliban Eddie Ford reviews Fundamentalism reborn? Afghanistan and the Taliban (ed William Malley)

Letters
Democracy and anarchism; Backing fundamentalism; SWP takes sides; Higher priorities

Free the weed?
The question of drugs policy is a democratic question for communists. What individual adults want to put in their bodies must be up to them, argues Jim Gilbert

Rearguard structures and vanguard politics
On December 1 the Socialist Alliance will be deciding what sort of organisation it aspires to be. In the first of a short series of articles Jack Conrad discusses what sort of ‘aims’ and ‘structures’ we are burdened with at present and argues that we must move on as a matter of urgency

State, religion and exploitation
Can the state and its bureaucracy function as both an agent of oppression and an agent of exploitation? Highlighting the examples of tsarist Russia and pharonic Egypt Al Richardson discusses the Asiatic mode of production and Marx’s theory

Hackney SA: Hard road to unity
Anne Mc Shane reports on the struggle in east London

Left nationalists split Network
The Republican Communist Network met in Edinbugh last Saturday. Bob Paul assesses the political forces involved

Our history
Mobilising the unemployed

Terrorist state
In the name of independent working class politics we seek a progressive solution to the Palestine-Israel conflict. An integral part of this is the fight for a Palestinian state and at the same time a recognition of the right to statehood and continued existence of the Israeli Jewish nation, writes Ian Donovan