This article appeared in Solidarity. Mass murderers, and especially those who execute children at point-blank range, are not normally objects of one’s sympathy. It is possible, I imagine, for Nazis to “understand” the motives of…

This March marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Bayard Rustin, the American civil rights leader who passed away in 1987.  Rustin is remembered as the organiser of the great 1963 March on Washington…

This article appears in the current issue of Solidarity. The opening scene of Michel Hazanavicius’ new film, “The Artist”, is a movie within a movie. It’s the final moments of a fictional 1927 silent film….

This article appears in the current issue of Solidarity. I bought tickets back in November for the “Building the revolution” show at the Royal Academy and was given a 10:00 AM admission time. When I…

This article appears in the current issue of Solidarity. In an interview this week for an Australian newspaper, the leader of the world’s trade union movement made an interesting observation. “Have progressive parties lost the narrative…

Last week’s LabourStart Global Solidarity Conference in Istanbul was meant to be an extraordinary event. Activists from the newly-independent unions of the “Arab Spring” countries were due to meet with colleagues from established unions from…

In mid-November trade unionists from more than 30 countries will be gathering in Istanbul for the second annual Global Solidarity Conference organised by LabourStart. The theme of this year’s conference is “From social networks to…

It’s a corporate dream come true: imagine if a company could find out exactly which customers – and potential customers – could influence others. If one could identify with precision those consumers who influence others…

Last month I sent out a mailing to LabourStart’s 75,000 subscribers asking people to support the struggles of striking oil workers in Kazakhstan and at a steel company in Georgia. As these were both former…

A decade ago, it was not easy to convince some on the Left to begin using net-based tools to communicate and organise. Today, we run the risk of becoming over-reliant on some of those tools,…