John Newsinger is right to make links between Donald Trump and Lewis Carroll’s Alice books (October SR), but he has mixed up his queens. Both quotes he gives are from the befuddled White Queen. The Queen of Hearts representing petulant, blind fury comes out with the very Trump-like, “Off with their heads.”
Ken Olende
London
Ian Taylor in September’s SR and Shaun Doherty in the October issue remind us that Brexit has unleashed a major crisis for the British ruling class and the Tories, caused by the anti-establishment vote to leave the EU.
But it has also created a major problem for the left and the forces of European anti-racism.
The EU is an unelected bureaucracy largely committed to neoliberal policies such as privatisation. In 2015 it hammered Greece with the imposition of austerity. It colluded with European governments that allowed hundreds of migrants to drown in the Mediterranean.
Has the nationalism of the oppressed transformed itself into a nationalism of the oppressor? This is a question that flows from Simon Gilbert’s analysis of China and the national question (September SR).
I am puzzled by a kink in the otherwise fine fabric of Andrew Jones’s review of the excellent Dorothea Lange exhibition at The Barbican (July/August SR).
In his excellent review of John Kelly’s Contemporary Trotskyism (June SR) Joseph Choonara quotes a couple of paragraphs from a document written by the distinguished historian Sam Farber in 1973.
Social Reproduction Theory, edited by Tithi Bhattacharya, has much more to offer than Sue Caldwell suggests in her review (July/August SR).
The essays provide a serious and rigorous attempt to extend a fundamental Marxist concept, the role of labour in creating value, to areas of life which have been neglected by many Marxist theoreticians, centrally the role of unpaid domestic labour in the reproduction of labour power.
An important addition needs to be made to Phil Marfleet’s excellent article on US anti-migrant campaigns (July/August SR).
Like all borders the US-Mexico border is entirely artificial. Mexico had won independence in a revolutionary war against Spain in 1821. At that time Mexico included Texas, New Mexico, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, California and part of Colorado.
Concerning Bob Light’s review of the subversive films of 1968 (May SR), I agree that Pontecorvo’s Battle of Algiers is a fantastic film, but not as impressive as his film Queimada (Burn! 1969), which stars Marlon Brando and was said to be influenced by Trotsky’s notion of permanent revolution.
I read Peter Keighron’s letter, “Is Marxist theory on religion still relevant?” (April SR).
I had to write an article recently about the Quaker families Fry and Cadbury and their chocolate products. I ended up saying “they may have been Christian evangelists but they did campaign against the slave trade in the 18th century, so let’s give credit where it’s due.”
It was Christians, led by William Wilberforce, who finally ended slavery in Britain and Ireland.
I disagree with Emma Davis’s call for tighter gun controls in the US (May SR).
Firstly, anyone who is intent on killing does not need a gun — homemade bombs, Molotov cocktails, machetes and cars driven at high speed are generally effective.
The constitutional right to bear arms should be defended because it ensures that the state does not have a monopoly on being armed. The same state that Emma quite rightly says would not be touched by any restrictions.
