Though Cowards Flinch

Welcome comrades, to what seems likely to be the last Carnival of Socialism for 2009. There’s plenty that’s been happening, and is worth remarking upon from the last few weeks, while the Carnival has been inactive. So this is a bumper edition to call to arms all the sleepy socialist and lefty bloggers of the world for a last week before we slump down in front of the telly, sweetmince pies in hand. Let’s begin.

In recent news, the Copenhagen summit on Climate Change is drawing to a close. Matt Sellwood has a rather good rant bemoaning its failure. Liz Stephens from Third Estate was pretty pessimistic to begin with, as was Lenin and the Tombies. Socialist Unity carries an article by Ken Livingstone discussing the global north-south divide evident at the summit. This is rather reinforced by the one-sided view taken by Linda McAvan MEP, and no doubt some of her colleagues.

Over at Liberal Conspiracy, Unity has been unimpeachable on the UEA email ‘leak’ and climate change denialism.

Chris Dillow batters the short sightedness of national governments trying to hang on to power in the face of the global warming threat. Jim Jepps has a fun game of match the quotation to which berk or hero said it. Derek Wall records how Hugo Chavez ‘brought the house down‘ by telling it like it is. There’s also the matter of the protests in Copenhagen, and the police reaction, reported by Permanent Revolution, with more from Jamie Potter.

There’s some understated mocking of “Hopenhagen” at Vulgar Marxism and some “shooting fish in a barrel” style mocking of Sarah Palin over at Soul of Man Under Capitalism.

Other green news has been permeating the blogosphere, in the wake of Copenhagen. There’s Phil querying the merits of carbon capture and storage – which has bearing on article I wrote a while ago about the Kingsnorth plant not far from me. Will Straw at Left Foot Forward has an excellent article outlining a hundred reasons why people shouldn’t vote Blue if they want Green policies. Hopi Sen has some good stuff debunking a specific Tory “Green” policy (while Duncan talks about how George Osborne will hurt low earners).

Also stemming from Copenhagen, there’s meta-coverage on the media and green issues. There are two articles over at Paul Sagar’s Bad Conscience. Hopi Sen is pretty appalled. Sunny Hundal suggests that some right-wingers at least might simply deny anthropogenic global warming because it sends the Left into kinks.

In the culture wars this fortnight, there’s the fight to get Rage Against the Machine to the Christmas No. 1 spot rather than whatever witless robots Simon Cowell is sponsoring this year, helpfully discussed by Barry Kade. Meanwhile Sunder Katwala reports on Philip Davies MP and his BS campaign against ‘political correctness’.

There is an extended argument about the future of the Left over at Liam MacUaid’s place, following the “Back the Left” concept put forward by various individuals. Dave Osler also has some speculations on Left futures as regards the potential for a Lib-Lab pact in the event of a hung parliament. To which Giles at Freethinking Economist has a sharp retort.

Septicisle and Peter Kenyon each discuss the commentary and polling as regards Labour’s “pre-budget report”. Unrelated to Labour’s fortunes but definitely tied into the future of the Left, Counago and Spaves have an interesting snippet from the Harvard Business Review on the virtues of socialisation of labour, as opposed to an heirarchical management relationship.

A new tradition seems to be celebrating Christmas by going on strike, and for good reason. The BA Cabin Crews strike, though struck down at the last minute by the State, has received support from many corners of the blogosphere, including Jerry Hicks. Our comrades down under, such as Ben Solah, are also recognising the need to defy State anti-union laws – something pretty evident here in the UK.

Nevertheless, I think I agree with Champagne Charlie at Shiraz Socialist that the BA workers are in much too precarious a position, both legally and as regards public opinion, to consider wildcat action. However, it worries me that Ken Clarke’s plans, mentioned by Roe Valley Socialist, to privatise Royal Mail and to extend the anti-union laws have gone largely unnoticed.

The expenses row seems to have petered out a little this month, but Chris Paul leads with an investigation into exactly what Mad Nad of Mid-Narnia has been up to.

On a humorous note, there’s an excellent article at Bleeding Heart Show entitled “The Indie Fan’s Guide to Political Blogging” – and lots of the usual faces of the blogging world feature in amusing ways. Enemies of Reason carries an article not entirely critical of the Daily Fail; Christmas spirit seems to be infectious and Diane Abbot rightly wins Janine’s ‘Friday Fuckwit‘ award over at Stroppyblog.

Speaking of awards, Snowball is dishing it out at the Histomat Awards 2009. Personally I think Richard Murphy over at LEAP should get an award for this article on the cost of unemployment (and just how heavy the tax burden is on the low-to-medium-waged).

Foreign affairs delivers some choice samples this month as well; such as Brockley’s Bob, Kit and Flesh is Grass on the Honduran coup d’etat. New and promising blog The Prison Notebook also carries an article on Honduras – hopefully this blog will be updated soon. Last month, there were some interesting discussions about Chavez’ idea of a Fifth International, here, at Fruits of Our Labour, at the Unity Aotearoa blog and elsewhere.

Plus there’s the victory of Evo Morales in the Bolivian elections, as discussed at Raincoat Optimism.

Special mention goes to Resolute Reader, who wrote one of only two reviews this year that persuaded me to purchase a book – this one, Vasily Grossman’s Life and Fate, which I’m currently reading. I’m wetting myself with frustration that I will have to read the whole thing again before I can review it in full – it’s that well-written, entertaining and complex that it has so many levels.. The other review which persuaded me to purchase some books was the fitting epitaphios given by Splinty on the oeuvre of the late, justly lamented Chris Harman.

Last and far from least there has been our own Paul Cotterill returning to his theme of hammering the credit ratings agencies for being corrupt, incompetent and a plaything of economic illiterati in the Conservative blogosphere.

For further updates, I always recommend the weekly round-up at Obsolete, the weekly round-up at Daily (Maybe) and the recently daily round-up at Left Outside, which has picked up another contributor.

The Carnival of Socialism has been allowed to slide for a couple of weeks, probably because John Angliss and Jim Jepps actually have lives, unlike the some of us. Nevertheless, it’s something that should be maintained because it gets attention for lots of different Left blogs, it’s a chance to highlight the oeuvre of new blogs and generally it pulls everyone up the Wikio and Google rankings, which is generally a good thing if it moves towards a world in which Iain Dale gets less attention.

The next CoS is due to be at Kasam Project, on January 10th, 2010, so I pass on the baton. Good luck, comrades!

Merry Christmas all.