Fight corporate tyranny, join Resistance!

By Bronwyn Powell

All over the world people are taking a stand against the tyranny
of big corporations and their governments' international economic institutions.
From Seattle to Indonesia, Melbourne to Prague, the IMF, World Bank and
World Trade Organisation are being met with resistance to their agenda
of putting corporate profits before people's needs — spreading poverty
for the profits of a few.

The injustices are too great to be ignored. More than half the world's
people live on less than one dollar a day, and yet the combined wealth
of the three richest people is greater than the yearly incomes of the poorest
48 countries.

But what can we do? We're told we can't change things; that global poverty
will be with us forever. As long as decisions are made by an ultra-rich
minority on the basis of profit, human suffering and devastation is
inevitable.

We can save a forest here, reduce a poor country's debt there, but we
have to go beyond band-aid solutions for what is an incurable disease —
the capitalist private profit system. We need to replace capitalism with
a system in which society's resources are under the control of the majority
of people and planned on the basis of human need, not corporate profits,
that is, with socialism.

The world can be changed. But as isolated individuals we are powerless.
We need to organise, so as to be able to act together. This is what Resistance
is all about. We seek to draw together all the struggles against injustice
and to involve as many people as possible in the struggle for a better
society.

Resistance formed in 1967, part of the youth rebellion that was inspired
by the Cuban and Vietnamese revolutions. Since then we have grown into
the largest socialist youth organisation in Australia, with branches in
every major city and clubs on 23 university campuses. Resistance members
include high school students, university and TAFE students, workers and
unemployed.

Since its formation three decades ago, Resistance has campaigned against
racism, sexism and homophobia and has supported international struggles
for justice, such as the East Timorese struggle for independence and the
fight for democracy in Indonesia.

The struggle against corporate misrule is growing: on one side the capitalist
elite, their governments and their police; on the other side the exploited,
oppressed and angry.

Working alone we can change some things, but together we can change
the world. So get active, fight for global justice and join the struggle
for socialism — join Resistance!

From GLW issue 434