Barry Healy

The personal cost of underground struggle betrayed

Lust, Caution
Directed by Ang Lee
Written by Eileen Chang (story); James Schamus & Hui-Ling Wang (screenplay)
With Tony Leung, Tang Wei & Joan Chen
In cinemas

An unsettling history of racism in NSW

Unsettled Places, Aboriginal People and Urbanisation in New South Wales
By George Morgan
Wakefield Press 2006, 162 pages, $24.95

Anger over WA death in custody verdict

There were emotional scenes in the Perth Coroners Court on November 28 as deputy State Coroner Evelyn Vicker read her findings into the death of a 35-year-old Aboriginal man, Carl Woods, in police custody in the suburb of Parmelia on April 11 last year. Woods’ relatives wept and expressed anger at Vicker’s finding of accidental death.

Rally opposes NT intervention

Speakers at a 100-strong rally supporting the November 17 national day of action for Indigenous rights condemned the Howard Coalition government’s “emergency” intervention into Northern Territory Aboriginal communities and expressed disappointment with the ALP for its “me-too” approach

God not great? Neither is Onfray!

The Atheist Manifesto: The Case Against Christianity, Judaism and Islam
By Michel Onfray
Melbourne University Press, 2007
219 pages, $32.95

Sustainable living, not green consumerism

Sustainable Living for Dummies
By Michael Grosvenor
Wiley Publishing Australia, 2007
320 pages, $39.95 (pb)

WA public servants serve pay claim

#151; A special convention of Western Australian Civil Service Association delegates voted unanimously on October 17 to serve a claim for a 23% wage increase over three years on the WA government. The claim, known as GA4, would begin with a 9% rise in February 2008, when the current general agreement 3 expires.

Get to know your local ruling class

Capitalist Networks and Social Power in Australia and New Zealand
By Georgina Murray
Ashgate, 2006
252 pages, US$99.95 (hb)

Life in a two-tier society

Many working-class people in Western Australia are suffering the consequences of a “two-tier society” despite the state’s booming economy, the Socialist Alliance candidate for Pearce, Annolies Truman, told the party’s state conference on August 11.

Candidate slams corporate polluters

On July 21 the East/Hills branch of the Socialist Alliance pre-selected Annolies Truman to run for the seat of Pearce in the up-coming federal election.

Permaculture and Marxism

It is often thought that concern for the interconnection of living systems is a modern development. But Karl Marx’s talked about it repeatedly throughout his Capital.

Productivity commissioner preaches garbage

Australia has long been known as one of the most wasteful countries in the world: per head of population we are second only to the US in the amount of waste we pile into landfills.