GLW issue number 864

Why feminists and the left must defend Julian Assange

When it comes to rape, the left “still doesn’t get it”, so says Katha Pollitt writing recently in the London Guardian on the defence of Wikileaks editor-in-chief Julian Assange, who is currently being held in Britain facing allegations of sex crimes in Sweden.

Bring troops home from Afghanistan to help with Qld flood crisis

The statement below was released by the Brisbane Socialist Alliance branch on January 11. See www.socialist-alliance.org for more information. Below the statement, there are also details of the Maritime Union of Australia's * * * 'Money for flood relief, not for war'

Australian News

Get a dose of workers’ control on May Day

One of the most vital features of the Bolivarian revolution underway in Venezuela is the development by workers and their organisations of different forms of workers’ control in their workplaces and communities. The increasing participation and control by workers is taking place at the same time as hundreds of companies have been nationalised.

Activist wins human rights award

Latin America Social Forum (Sydney) co-founder and respected Latin American community activist Victor-Hugo Munoz was awarded a Diploma of Honour on December 4 by the Guatemala Network for Peace and Development. The award acknowledged Munoz’s tireless, decades-long work in defence of human rights in Guatemala.

Further Australian News

International News

Sri Lanka: Deported asylum seekers face torture, jail

“Mum’s dead”. The gloomy faced Sujendran Gunesekaram greeted me, as we met in person for the first time. His mother died of a heart attack on September 5, after suffering for three years. Sujendran is a 27-year-old Sri Lankan Tamil originally from Muttur in Trincomalee, the war-hit town in the east. He was one of 254 asylum seekers on the Australia-bound boat Jeya Lestari that moored off at the port in Merak, Indonesia in October 2009.

Bid to wreck Cancun meets resistance

The United Nations global climate summit in Cancun, Mexico, looks set to repeat the failures of Copenhagen. The chances of Cancun producing a binding agreement that would avert climate disaster are next to zero. Many world leaders have not even bothered to attend the summit, which runs from November 29 to December 10. Leaders of rich nations and the media talked much about the “low expectations” of an agreement in the lead-up to the conference.

Further International News

Comment and Analysis

Murray murmurings: rethinking the Basin Plan

The launch of the community guide to the draft Murray Darling Basin Plan marks the latest step in the largely bipartisan process of water reform that started with the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) reforms of 1994. It also graphically displays the risks inherent in the increasingly centralised, Commonwealth-driven approach to water planning that developed under the Howard government and has intensified since.

Can the union left build greater unity?

The first Union and Community Summer School (UCSS) will take place at Melbourne Trades Hall over December 10-11. The UCSS will bring together a wide range of left, progressive and socialist organisations and unionists. It is an experiment in finding practical unity.

Further Comment and Analysis

Editorial

Editorial: We have a right to know

Wikileaks and its founder Julian Assange have made some powerful enemies. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has accused Wikileaks of putting the world in danger and Australian PM Julia Gillard has said its activities are illegal. In the US, Wikileaks has been denounced as a terrorist organisation and there have been calls for Assange to be either prosecuted, kidnapped or simply assassinated.

Letters

Letters to the editor

Bandt Afghan contribution too weak

General

Last issue of the year

Green Left Weekly issue #864 will be our final issue for 2010 as we take a break in production of the hard copy of GLW over the holiday period. The next hard copy edition of GLW will be dated January 26. However, we aim to continue updating this site with news and analysis where possible and necessary over this period. We thank all our readers for your support and wish you the best for holiday season.

Resistance!

Raunch culture, sex and sexuality

Public displays of sexual desire, sex and agency are almost synonymous with the broad Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Intersex (LGBTI) rights movement. Positive displays of queer sexuality challenge narrow and dominant ideas about "acceptable" sex and sexuality. They play an important role in the struggle for democratic rights and against persecution; and in exploring sexual pleasure and desire. Sections of the women's liberation movement investigate and promote women's sexuality and sexual pleasure for similar reasons.

The case to decriminalise sex work

Sydney is the “sex capital” of Australia, said an article in the November 12 Daily Telegraph, which called the city the “Amsterdam of the South Pacific”. The article reported recent figures from the Government Interagency Brothels Taskforce that showed 271 legal brothels in the state, as well as claims that “the industry is being infiltrated by organised crime”. The figures, which were labelled “shocking”, were blamed on “dysfunctional planning laws and legislation” by one figure quoted.

Cultural Dissent

Putting humans back into socialism

The Socialist Alternative Michael Lebowitz Monthly Review Press, 2010 pp 192; US$15.95 The onset of the global economic crisis in mid 2008, symbolised by the collapse of some of Wall Street’s most iconic companies, led to soaring sales of Karl Marx’s seminal work Das Kapital, as many sought explanations to the tumultuous events unfolding. Although written more than 100 years ago, this devastating and insightful dissection of how capital functions is still a powerful tool for people looking to understand and change the world.

Manic Street Preachers: ‘One last shot at mass communication’

Manic Street Preachers Postcards From a Young Man (Sony, 2010) From its opening strains, the Manic Street Preachers’ 10th and latest album, Postcards From a Young Man, is clearly the successor not only to 2007’s Send Away The Tigers, but also to their critically acclaimed 1996 success Everything Must Go.

Further Cultural Dissent

Fighting Fund

All I want for Christmas is …

It’s that time of the year again. It’s the festival of festivals to boost the profits of giant retail stores. The “Spirit of Christmas” demands to be fed with your maxed out credit card. There’s a new desperation to this seasonal message this year. The shoppers are not splurging like they should. A recent Westpac survey found that consumers would spend 34% less in 2010 than in 2009.

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