Who are SL Marxists?

SL Marxists (SLM) is an organisation of revolutionary socialists committed to ending the barbarities of capitalism. We are a group of principled left activists fighting for a world free from war, racism, sexism and oppression. We stand for a society organised along lines of workers’ democracy, in which production is owned and controlled by the mass of humanity for human need rather than for profit. We are affiliated to SL Left Unity as a platform. If you think a better world is worth fighting for, don’t wait for the barricades to go up – join us!

Visit our headquarters in New Babbage:
http://slurl.com/secondlife/New%20Babbage/41/252/116

Stop the reactionary SOPA and Protect IP!

As all Marxists in the US and indeed around the world should, SL Marxists thoroughly opposes the introduction of reactionary laws to bolster the state’s power to police the internet in the name of protecting “intellectual property.”

The proposed legislation now before the US congress is nothing but an attempt by the bourgeoisie to protect the profits of multimedia companies in a time of economic distress. They take aim at the internet, a revolutionary medium which allows people all across the world to share information freely at rapid speeds. Computer technology allows everything from text to images, video and audio to be copied and transmitted across the globe in seconds, making information extremely accessible for billions of people.

Under ordinary market conditions, such super-abundance of a commodity should set its value to zero. According to the supply and demand model of classical economics, as the supply of a commodity approaches infinity, its value should approach zero. Information is theoretically infinitely abundant and should therefore have no value in the market whatsoever. This, however, threatens the profits of record companies, movie studios and other multimedia companies. As such, the bourgeoisie are inclined to violate their market ideology and introduce reactionary laws to limit the supply of information to ensure it can still be sold.

This also demonstrates how capitalism is unable to allow for society to progress to an era of post-scarcity. Although not all pro-capitalists agree this is possible, communists understand this is well within the realm of possibility and can only be achieved by a global socialist revolution.

The American Dream – a reactionary short film.

I have come across a disturbing animated short film recently that I feel should be rejected unanimously. The film, entitled “The American Dream,” presents the fallacious idea that finance capitalists are a separate class of individuals that have corrupted capitalism. This conspiracy, which has its roots in the anti-Semitic book “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” seeks to justify the existence of industrial capitalism by misdirection. It is an idea which has lead to the emergence of fascism in Europe, and has distracted the working class and prevented meaningful revolutionary organization.

Anyone with even a basic understanding of Marxism would not take this film seriously. It shares striking similarities with the Zeitgeist films, and is nothing but a petite-bourgeois reactionary polemic against late-stage capitalism.

To top it all off, the film contains very sexist sentiments and relies on pop-culture references to entice the viewer into buying its ridiculous message.

If you have not seen it, it is available to watch on youtube.

J30: Support the British Public Sector Strike

Time/date: All Day
Location: Speakers’ Corner, SL London Hyde Park

SLUNCUT, a broad coalition formed to support the global resistance against cut-backs and austerity, have called a day of action in SL as a show of solidarity with the hundreds of thousands of public sector workers on strike in Britain this Thursday.

700,000 British public sector workers have voted to take strike action in defence of their jobs and services. Teachers, public servants, healthcare workers, transport workers, lecturers and council workers will be stopping work to stop cuts to the NHS and pensions.

Join SLUNCUT

We will be aiming for a full day occupation of London Hyde Park in SL to share tweets from the protests as they unfold and to discuss the way forward for the fightback. We may even meet a few people on strike themselves. Wherever you are in the world (except possibly the UK, in which case we’d expect you to be on the streets!), we encourage you to come along and show your support for the public sector workers of Britain. United we stand, we will defeat these cuts.

Rally called by SLUNCUT
Endorsements: SL Left Unity, SL Marxists

Protesting violence against the Libyan people

Today we are in the United Nations Association sim, protesting the violence going on right now against the Libyan people, who have risen up to overthrow Muammar al-Gaddafi.
This protest action was initiated by no organization, but rather by individuals who felt they wanted to express their rage at this unprecedented use of bloody force by the Gaddafi regime against their own people.
Several Activist groups are represented among the protesters here today: SLLU, Amnesty International, Four Bridges, Anti-Nazi League, No Pasaran!, In Soldarity with Egypt, SL Marxists.
We wait together and watch Al Jazeera and Twitter for breaking news.
Other articles on today’s protest action can be found at:

http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-559642

http://slleftunity.blogspot.com/2011/02/sl-calls-for-gadaffi-to-go.html

http://palaisorleans.blogspot.com/2011/02/libya-calling.html

The protest will commence again tomorrow at 10:00 AM SL time, at http://slurl.com/secondlife/Clearwater%20Beach/135/101/25

To quote one activist who helped to bring this protest action together today: “We are here in (Second Life), We are there in (Real Life). We are everywhere. We demand Freedom, Peace, and Human Rights for Libyan People.”

SLM Endorses SLUncut

SL Marxists supports the proposal for SL Left Unity to initiate a broad-based campaign of opposition to austerity and cuts, and to show solidarity with the struggle of workers across Europe fighting back against the biggest attacks on their living standards in decades.

You can view the original proposal here.
http://slleftunity.blogspot.com/2011/02/proposal-for-sluncut.html

“Take Tahrir to the factories!” – Egypt’s Junta and the Permanent Revolution

Commentary, Hossam el-Hamalawy, Revolutionary Socialists of Egypt

Since yesterday, and actually earlier, middle class activists have been urging Egyptians to suspend the protests and return to work, in the name of patriotism, singing some of the most ridiculous lullabies about “let’s build new Egypt,” “Let’s work harder than even before,” etc… In case you didn’t know, actually Egyptians are among the hardest working people in the globe already..

Those activists want us to trust Mubarak’s generals with the transition to democracy–the same junta that has provided the backbone of his dictatorship over the past 30 years. And while I believe the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, who receive $1.3 billion annually from the US, will eventually engineer the transition to a “civilian” government, I have no doubt it will be a government that will guarantee the continuation of a system that will never touch the army’s privileges, keep the armed forces as the institution that will have the final say in politics (like for example Turkey), guarantee Egypt will continue to follow the US foreign policy whether it’s the undesired peace with Apartheid State of Israel, safe passage for the US navy in the Suez Canal, the continuation of the Gaza siege and exports of natural gas to Israel at subsidized rates. The “civilian” government is not about cabinet members who do not wear military uniforms. A civilian government means a government that fully represents the Egyptian people’s demands and desires without any intervention from the brass. And I see this hard to be accomplished or allowed by the junta.