Mass mobilisations are forcing governments to seriously consider imposing sanctions and severing ties — even in places like Australia and the Netherlands — despite continued arms shipments to Israel’s war machine, writes RAMZY BAROUD
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Major John Cartwright, the gentleman radical who paved the way for working-class democracy
MAT COWARD traces how ill health and voracious reading transformed a military man into the Father of Reform, championing American independence, universal suffrage and secret ballots against Establishment resistance
Major John Cartwright
What we are learning today is that fascism can come to power even when the working class of almost every capitalist nation is very far from achieving revolution, argues DAVID LETHBRIDGE
TONY BURKE explains how an internationally significant breakthrough for workers’ organisation and recognition against two notoriously anti-union global mega corporations has been finally achieved in Canada
The heroism of the jury who defied prison and starvation conditions secured the absolute right of juries to deliver verdicts based on conscience — a convention which is now under attack, writes MAT COWARD
A Dutch investigation found seven internationally renowned Holocaust and genocide experts, including Israelis, concluded Israel’s actions in Gaza constitute genocide, despite a campaign of denial and disinformation from the US state, writes TERRY HANSEN
The horrors in the Congo have much in common with Gaza’s genocide, most notably the financial and military support of the US, writes LINDA PENTZ GUNTER
IF YOU were to rescue four people from drowning on four different occasions, the first in your early twenties and the last in your fifties, you might expect to be famous for doing so, and perhaps even to have received a little medal or scroll which you could modestly display in the downstairs loo.
But the achievements of Major John Cartwright were such that the four rescues he carried out during his lifetime, one at sea and three in rivers, are nothing but a curious footnote to the story of the man known to history as “the Father of Reform.”
He was born in Nottinghamshire in 1740 to a landowning family, which, while still well connected, had once been rich but was now merely comfortable. John joined the navy on leaving school, saved a comrade from drowning, and rose in rank rapidly.
Serious health problems resulting from his service forced him to return home in 1770 as a convalescent. This turned out to have a significant effect on his life since he spent much of his time reading — and he began to develop ideas about constitutional matters which would eventually lead to this distinguished military veteran appearing in court at 80 years old charged with sedition.
As the war between Britain and its US colonies approached, Cartwright became convinced that it was the US rebels who had right on their side. Though still a serving naval officer, in 1774, he published a pamphlet arguing that the colonists had an inalienable right to govern themselves.
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