Armistice Day…or, making the world safe for Big Oil

As the armaments boosters and those turning a Nelsonian eye to the futility of it all ‘celebrate’ the ‘glorious dead’ of the Great War and its Armistice Day of more than 100 years ago, socialist historian Humphrey McQueen puts a different slant on what he says really happened a century ago in the power play to control the world’s major enabler of production. His analysis explains why the ‘war that never really ended’ still girdles the Middle East today.

Helping to shape our dialogue with Iran

[caption id="attachment_7173" align="alignleft" width="150"] Photo: Jennifer Ashton and Eloise McLean[/caption]Much productive work of CLA occurs behind the scenes, often in meetings that take eat up time: planning, preparation, deciding who should attend, attending, and then reporting. Here’s an example of a ‘dialogue’ preparation meeting, run by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, to help their diplomats prepare for an exchange of views with Iran over human rights.