Nationwide protests erupted for the second night in a row on November 25. Protest explodd afater a grand jury decision the day before to not indict Missouri police officer Darren Wilson for fatally shooting unaramed Black teenager Michael Brown in August. In Ferguson, Missouri, more than 700 extra National Guard troops have been deployed to the streets. The reinforcements bring the total number of troops to about 2200, along with hundreds of police officers. Missouri Governor Jay Nixon claimed the beef up was needed to prevent protests from turning violent.
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Protesters began to gather on the streets around the greater St Louis area on November 24, ahead of the decision of a jury on whether or not a white police officer should face charges over his shooting of unarmed 18-year-old Black youth Michael Brown in August.
St Louis County Prosecutor Robert McCollough announced that the grand jury had determined that officer Darren Wilson would not face charges for killing Brown.
Just after 8pm local time, McCulloch said the jury had found “no probable cause exists to file any charge against … Wilson”.
US police began an investigation on November 24 into the death of a 12-year-old boy who was fatally shot by Cleveland officers after he brandished a replica gun.
The boy died from his wounds on November 23, a day after officers responded to an emergency call about someone waving a “probably fake” gun at a playground.
He was identified by the Cuyahoga County medical examiner as Tamir Rice.
The Political Bubble: Why Australians Don’t Trust Politics
Mark Latham
Macmillan, 2014
291 pages, $32.99 (pb)
The only thing surprising about the 4% of Australians who a poll last year said “almost always” trusted the federal government is that the figure is that high.
Further evidence of the many failures of Australian politics comes in The Political Bubble via an angry Mark Latham, the former leader of the federal Labor Party.
Mira Canning Stock Route Project
http://mira.canningstockrouteproject.com
In the early part of the 20th century, the “Kings in Grass Castle” ― the cattle barons of northern Western Australia ― were profit-gouging the beef trade through controlling transport.
The WA government decided to break their monopoly by mapping a stock route from the Kimberley down through the state’s semi-arid interior to the southern markets.
Forgotten War
By Henry Reynolds
New South, 2013
In August, Prime Minister Tony Abbott attended a ceremony in Sydney to mark the 100 years since the Australian Naval and Military Expedition Force sailed out of Sydney Harbour to German New Guinea shortly after Britain declared war on Germany in 1914.
The occasion was the official start of a four-year-long Anzac centenary of jingoism. Abbott was anxious that we “should know all our great war stories better” by the time the centenary commemorations come to an end.
In a move that surprised many ― and symbolises Israel's growing isolation and global opposition to its crimes ― former Australian foreign minister Bob Carr has publicly declared his opposition to Israeli policies of apartheid and ethnic cleansing.
Carr's change in position was announced in a November 8 Australian opinion piece titled “Why I am now a friend of Palestine rather than Israel”.
Cesar Chavez
Directed by Diego Luna
Written by Keir Pearson
Australian release TBA
The 1936 National Labor Relations Act in the United States recognised the rights of US workers to organise and collectively bargain -- but excluded farm workers.
Cesar Chavez tells the story of the heroic struggle of super-expoited farm workers -- frequently immigrants -- and their leader Cesar Chavez for their rights to organise for a dignified living.
Five hundred people rallied in Melbourne on November 15 to protest against the Coalition government's proposed East West toll road. The rally had three main demands: scrap the East West Link, rip up the contracts and invest in public transport.
Socialist Alliance candidate for the seat of Pascoe Vale in the Victorian election, Sean Brocklehurst, gave this speech to the rally.
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My name is Sean Brocklehurst. I am a candidate for the seat of Pascoe Vale. I am also an activist with Moreland Community Against the Tunnel.
We are against this tunnel.
Leslie Feinberg, who identified as an anti-racist white, working-class, secular Jewish, transgender, lesbian, female, revolutionary communist, died on November 15, aged 65.
She succumbed to complications from multiple tick-borne co-infections, including Lyme disease, babeisiosis and Protomyxzoa rheumatica, after decades of illness.
She died at home in Syracuse, New York. Her partner and spouse of 22 years, I was at her side. Her last words were: “Hasten the revolution! Remember me as a revolutionary communist.”
The following is an open letter to Western Australian Premier Colin Barnett by Aboriginal campaigner Iva Hayward-Jackson.
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Recently the Premier of Western Australia, Colin Barnett, committed to closing down approximately 150 remote Aboriginal communities in Western Australia.
The premier has claimed that the closures would be in the best interests of Aboriginal people in Western Australia. He has followed the old uninformed line that demonises Aboriginal men by insinuating that Aboriginal women and children are under great threat by the men in the communities.
Here are some numbers. There were 51.2 million refugees and displaced people worldwide at the end of last year. About 11,000 Australian protection visas are available, worldwide, each year, for people overseas who have applied for asylum.
Australia’s total share of the 11.7 million refugees officially registered with the UN refugee agency is 0.3%.
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