GLW issue number 913

in

Behind Kony 2012 and Ugandan war criminals

The Kony 2012 film, produced by the Invisible Children NGO, has gone viral over the internet. Viewed more than 14 million times, and widely hailed in the mainstream media, the film targets Lord's Resistance Army leader Joseph Kony for his crimes -- but backs forces in the Ugandan military guilty of similar crimes and supports US military intervention.

Mike Crook: ‘Capitalism is about things, socialism is about people’

The campaign launch for Mike Crook, the Socialist Alliance candidate for the seat of Sandgate in the March 24 Queensland state election, took place in Einbunpin Park, Sandgate, on March 4. About 25 people, including several Greens supporters, attended the launch, which was held next to the lagoon in the seaside suburb. Crook told the audience: “For the major parties, Labor and Liberal National Party, the big corporations pay the piper, and therefore call the tune. For the Socialist Alliance, we believe that the really worthwhile political activity comes from the grassroots.

International News

PHOTO ESSAY: 'The Malaysian people say stop Lynas!'

Lynas, an Australian mining company, is building a rare earth refinery close to the heavily populated area city of Kuantan in Malaysia. The ore is to be shipped from a mine in Western Australia but the highly toxic and radioactive waste which the refinery will produce will not be accepted back by the WA government.

Spain: ‘Books not truncheons’ -- students protest education cuts

Last year it was the indignado movement that filled Spain’s city squares with hundreds of thousands of protesters. On February 19, it was the union-led movement against the Popular Party (PP) government’s new labour law. On February 29, another mass protest flooded the squares: tens of thousands of students protesting against cuts to education in 25 cities and towns across Spain. They had paid no attention to the plea of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, who on the eve of the protest asked Spaniards “to understand that things are not that easy”. Huge support
Further International News

Letters

Letters to the editor

Co-operative housing I agree with nearly everything written by Douglas Jordan in the article Public housing is an issue for the whole community. Housing needs to be affordable, secure and accessible. Public housing is good and should be extended. The part I do not entirely agree with is "in essence social housing is the privatisation of public housing". There are two types of social housing. One is as described by Douglas, the other is co-operatives.

Cultural Dissent

Revolution in Bloom: Occupy Chicago launches Rebel Arts Collective

This is an abridged version of an article that first appeared on February 24 in the Occupied Chicago Tribune, the newspaper backing Occupy Chicago. Despite brutal forced evictions of Occupy camps across the United States late last year, the movement for the interests of the 99% against the 1% is still going strong.

Powerful 'green shopping' critique falls short on solutions

Green Washed: Why We Can’t Buy Our Way to a Green Planet Kendra Pierre-Louis IG Publishing, 216 pages Radical German poet Hans Magnus Enzenberger once compared mainstream environmentalism to a Sunday sermon that terrifies parishioners with dire warnings of eternal damnation, but concludes weakly by promising salvation to any sinner who performs a simple act of penance. “The horror of the predicted catastrophe,” he wrote, “contrasts sharply with the mildness of the admonition with which we are allowed to escape.”
Further Cultural Dissent