Marxism 2015 10: Monday Morning

A personal account of the two meetings I attended on the Monday morning at Marxism 2015, with some photographs and a link to an old blog post.

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to the latest installment in my series of posts about Marxism 2015, the five-day political festival in central London, organised by the Socialist Workers Party. In this post, which I hope some of you will enjoy enough to share, I shall be covering the last two regular meetings before the final rally.

TWO SPLENDID MEETINGS

HOW BIG PHARMA STOPS US MAKING PROGRESS

This meeting, in Nunn Hall, where a lot of the meetings that appealed to me seemed to be taking place, was an excellent start to the final day of this great event.

Speaker Camilla Royle and the chair before the meeting started.
Speaker Camilla Royle and the chair before the meeting started.
The book being advertised at this meeting - and having borrowed it from the library a while back I can confirm that it is a splendid read.
The book being advertised at this meeting – and having borrowed it from the library a while back I can confirm that it is a splendid read.
Camilla giving her opening speech.
Camilla giving her opening speech.
The timetable for Monday.
The timetable for Monday.

I will limit myself to one story from that meeting – a tale of how 73 trials of which 37 gave the right result and 36 the wrong were spun by a combination of suppression and deceit into 48 successful trials and 3 failures – this is how the pharmaceutical industry chooses to conduct itself.

PEGIDA AND THE FIGHT AGAINST RACISM, FASCISM AND ISLAMAPHOBIA IN GERMANY

This was the last of the regular meetings I attended at the event, and it was superb. The main speaker, Christine Buchholz, a member of Die Linke talked about the rapid rise of Pegida and then the counter to them – appearing everywhere they did in bigger numbers. This of course is the way the Anti-Nazi League in this country dealt with the National Front and then in the 1990s with the first rise of the BNP, also how Unite Against Fascism dealt with the EDL and the second rise of the BNP – confront them, never let them have a moment’s peace and make it abundantly clear that there are more of us than there are of them. Check out this early blog post of mine on the matter.

A membership form for Unite Against Fascism.
A membership form for Unite Against Fascism.

Mention was also made of the brief and spectacularly ill-starred Pegida UK, which was really the absolute rump of the EDL and BNP, and never gathered any momentum. For examples of what happens of you do not take these people head on Holland and Austria where there are very major fascist organizations were cited (France with Front National being too well known to need much of a mention).

Here are some final photos…

Displays in the foyer area between the Logan and Jeffrey halls (the Drama Studio is also in this area).
Displays in the foyer area between the Logan and Jeffrey halls (the Drama Studio is also in this area).

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Speaker and Chair before the meeting
Speaker and Chair before the meeting
Christine Buchholz during her opening speech.
Christine Buchholz during her opening speech.

Author: Thomas

I am a founder member and currently secretary of the West Norfolk Autism Group and am autistic myself. I am a very keen photographer and almost every blog post I produce will feature some of my own photographs. I am an avidly keen cricket fan and often post about that sport.

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