Activity
The organisation regarded itself as having learned important lessons from the women's movement, gay liberation struggles and environmental movements and is oriented towards broad campaigns and recomposition of the left. It supported developments like Workers Aid for Bosnia, the Scottish Socialist Party, the Socialist Alliance, the International Socialist Movement, the World Social Forum, the Respect coalition, Hands Off Venezuela, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and the Campaign against Climate Change.
Alongside its own journal the ISG sponsored Socialist Resistance, a magazine produced jointly with the smaller Socialist Solidarity Network and some individuals. By 2009, the group's membership had fallen somewhere around 70, the number signed up to its members-only email discussion group.
Reflecting the support of the Fourth International for the European Anticapitalist Left, the ISG joined Respect coalition in England and Wales. Alan Thornett sits on Respect's National Council, and is an organiser of the Respect Renewal movement. The ISG also strongly supports the Scottish Socialist Party, and opposed the split from that party which created the Solidarity movement in Scotland. The Group called for a first preference vote for the Green Party candidate, the ecosocialist Siân Berry, in the 2008 London mayoral election.
Read more about this topic: International Socialist Group
Famous quotes containing the word activity:
“What have we achieved in mowing down mountain ranges, harnessing the energy of mighty rivers, or moving whole populations about like chess pieces, if we ourselves remain the same restless, miserable, frustrated creatures we were before? To call such activity progress is utter delusion. We may succeed in altering the face of the earth until it is unrecognizable even to the Creator, but if we are unaffected wherein lies the meaning?”
—Henry Miller (1891–1980)
“The teacher must derive not only the capacity, but the desire, to observe natural phenomena. In our system, she must become a passive, much more than an active, influence, and her passivity shall be composed of anxious scientific curiosity and of absolute respect for the phenomenon which she wishes to observe. The teacher must understand and feel her position of observer: the activity must lie in the phenomenon.”
—Maria Montessori (1870–1952)
“For universal love is as special an aspect as carnal love or any of the other kinds: all forms of mental and spiritual activity must be practiced and encouraged equally if the whole affair is to prosper. There is no cutting corners where the life of the soul is concerned....”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)