Under the spell

At least one third of annual retail trade is concentrated in the four-week period up to Christmas. Capitalism promotes the family, friendship and festivity for one reason alone - money. Judging by the slow response this month, our readers seem to have fallen under the commercial spell.

But, whatever the time of year, this paper must meet its costs. Not because we are interested in making money for the sake of it, but because the left needs its weekly voice of sanity, truth and pro-partyism.

Thankfully, after the slow start, there were signs of a slight improvement this week. Comrades LD (£25), YH (£25), KF (£20), AK (£10) and JP with £5 are to be commended, if only for (slightly) unfurrowing my brow. That leaves us with £163 towards our £450 monthly target.

Robbie Rix

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Weekly Worker 412 is available in pdf format as zipped (963KB) or unzipped (1.24MB) files

Number 412

Thursday December 13 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.

For a democratic federal Europe
Jack Conrad calls for the working class to mould a united Europe in its own image

Letters
Coy relationship; Not SWP; Dishonest; Any name; Greedy Gibs; Messed up

Elections only
Letter to the Socialist Alliance national executive from the Socialist Party in England and Wales

Welsh Socialist Alliance: Resignation and retreat
The SWP's plans for the WSA have been thrown into disarray by the resignation of a leading comrade. Cameron Richards reports

• Why I resigned from the SWP
  Richard Morse's resignation statement

Marx, marxists and morality
Critics of Marxism often contemptuously dismiss it as antithetical to morality. In the first of a short series of articles Michael Malkin argues that on the contrary Marxism is deeply moral

Reactionary anti-Zionism
Eddie Ford examines the roots of Hamas and looks at its programmatic charter

Stop the War teach-in: Democracy to the fore
Phil Kent and Mike Metelits report on the December 10 teach-in

Reclaiming Maclean
James Mallory looks at the politics of a Scottish revolutionary

Our history
Heroic struggle

Horror upon horror
The bloody impasse in Israel/Palestine demands a democratic solutiuon argues Ian Donovan