Socialism defeated again...and again?

A hundred years ago, the socialist international represented millions of workers but in 1915 at the Zimmerwald conference the delegates joked that the number of socialist internationalists could be fitted into one or two stage coaches.

In the 1920s Stalin claimed to have decisively routed Socialism which he termed "Trotskyism".

Hitler claimed that he had completely annihilated socialism and communism.

Margaret Thatcher made the same grandiose claim.

Yet today we still have people who feel the need to denounce socialism at great length - denouncing something they have decisively destroyed.....several times.

It makes you wonder.

Crazy about work

A copy of John Illingworth's survey about mental health problems "Crazy about Work" can be downloaded from the WSTA website

here

Blogs

WSTA delegates did a blog of conference. This is a new idea and makes it possible for the members we left behind to keep abreast of what it happening.

Click Here

Mr Read emailed and asked me to mention his blog
http://mrread.blogspot.com/

Consider yourself mentioned!

Release of 15 captives from Iran

I am delighted that they have been restored to their families. They must be overjoyed. If only the POWs at Guantanamo could be released so quickly.

Contrast the treatment of these captives with the POWS at Guantanamo. It comes to something when an appalling regime like Iran comes off looking better than we do! Were the 15 imprisoned without trial for years? Were they tortured by waterboarding? Where is our moral superiority now?

I know that domestic opponents of the Iranian regime are treated a lot worse than the 15 were but Guantanamo prevents any moral indignation from the US or UK government - they will just be laughed at.

Socialist Party Teachers Bulletin

You can read the bulletin online.

Click Here

Articles on

Slavery: the truth
Supply Teaching
Workload
Academies
Testing
Young Teachers
Performance Pay
Defending Reps (Part of which you will recognise!)
Professional Unity
SEN and Privatisation
Early Years
Building Schools for the Future
Political Fund
Classroom Observations
Pupil Behaviour
Salaries
Fringe Meeting
National Action

Read before you judge!

300

I saw 300 today and the short review would be "don't".

The battle scenes are well choreographed but the cartoon-like violence becomes repetitive when you have seen the fifteenth beheading. I found myself murmuring, "I've had worse than this, this is just a flesh wound." which seemed to send my daughter into fits of laughter.

The dialogue is forced and false. It is a bit of an insult to the Greeks who invented rhetoric to make them sound like neocon yahoos.

And Xerxes was a bit of a stereotype I think. The big bad black guy with an army of rhinos, giants and elephants.

And it is just the film to get Bush baby dropping 300 hundred troops into Iran just to see if it works.


No it was not history. To be fair, historical drama seldom is. Shakespeare (for example) certainly isn't. Having said which this certainly ain't Shakespeare!