In his May Day message for the Morning Star, RICHARD BURGON says the call for peace, equality and socialism has never been more relevant
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You can't be a pacifist in the culture wars
The ideology of the ruling class will always clash with the ideals of the oppressed — the left cannot and should not stay out of the fight. However it must pick its battles wisely and not allow identity politics to get in the way of solidarity, writes JOHN GREEN
The Me Too movement alongside Black Lives Matter are challenging widely held belief systems and traditional hierarchies — at the same time these are being distrorted and dismissed by the ruling elite and its supporters
This May Day we reaffirm our commitment to working people and our class and to get trade unionism back on the front foot, says EDDIE DEMPSEY
DIANE ABBOTT looks at the whys and hows of Labour’s spectacular own goal
When it comes to extreme weather events, from wildfires to flash floods, it’s firefighters who are on the front line of defence, but services have been cut to the bone, and government is not taking seriously its responsibility for the environment, says STEVE WRIGHT
LUKE FLETCHER pours scorn on Labour’s betrayal of the Welsh steel industry, where the option of nationalisation was sneered at and dismissed – unlike at Scunthorpe where the government stepped in
Washington’s tariff policies become explicable in light of the US economy’s relative decline and the astonishing rise of China, argues MICHAEL BURKE
SOLOMON HUGHES highlights a 1995 Sunday Times story about the disappearance of ‘defecting Iraqi nuclear scientist.’ Even though the story was debunked, it was widely repeated across the mainstream press, creating the false – and deadly – narrative of Iraqi WMD that eventually led to war
THERE is much talk in the media these days about culture wars, being “woke” and the dangers of “cancel culture” — but they are concepts few people really understand.
In a Times Radio poll in February, respondents were asked what they think “culture war” means. Only 7 per cent came up with a relevant answer, 15 per cent got it wrong, and a whopping 76 per cent said they didn’t know. However, just because people don’t know what a culture war is doesn’t mean they’re not in one.
As long as you have a class system there will be culture wars: a conflict between the hegemonic culture of the elite and that of the oppressed classes. These simply reflect the conflict between class economic interests.
Today, with the sharpening of the class struggle and an increasing awareness of the bankruptcy of capitalism, the global ideological struggle also becomes more acute.
Faced as we are by existential problems, the struggle for ideological and cultural hegemony becomes increasingly significant — but also more acrimonious.
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