The article below is an abridged editorial from US progressive magazine Against The Current.
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The decade opened with the attacks of September 11, 2001 may have symbolically closed with the elite US death-squad assassination of Osama bin Laden.
But the turmoil of these post-9/11 years, notably the self-inflicted wounds of US capitalism, have exceeded the terrorist mastermind’s wildest dreams.
There are the wars that George W Bush, with the support of congressional Democrats, launched in Afghanistan and Iraq.
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Resistance is a co-sponsor of the Climate Change Social Change activist conference in Melbourne over September 30 to October 4. Green Left Weekly asked some Resistance members about their thoughts on this major event.
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Hannah Reardon-Smith, Brisbane
To me, events such as the Climate Change Social Change conference are essential for reigniting my enthusiasm and my energy for the good (but long) fight.
Will NSW’s Liberal-National state government follow its Victorian colleagues and block the development of wind energy in the state?
Victorian Premier Ted Baillieu announced new planning laws on August 29 that ban wind farms from large areas of the state. The laws put so many hurdles in the way of new wind developments that most wind companies are now talking of abandoning further developments in the state.
Australia’s media, already saturated with gas and mining company propaganda, are about to be bombarded with more “good news” about coal seam gas (CSG). A campaign called “We want CSG” was launched on September 4. It includes television, radio, newspaper and online advertisements. It is backed by some of Australia’s largest energy companies, including AGL, Santos, and Origin Energy, under the banner of the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association (APPEA).
British-based economist, activist and writer Derek Wall is a member of the Green Party of England and Wales and is the author of several books on ecology and politics.
Wall will speak via video link at the Climate Change Social Change activist conference in Melbourne over September 30 to October 3. He maintains the ecosocialist blog Another Green World.
When Liberal leader Tony Abbott promised in the last federal election campaign that the notorious anti-worker “Work Choices” laws of the former Howard Liberal-National government were “dead, buried and cremated” very few people believed him.
Emissions rise under carbon price
Labor proposes a carbon price plan to “tackle climate change” and create what it calls a “clean energy future” by an implied decrease in greenhouse gas pollution.
However the Australian government-endorsed Treasury modelling report, “Strong growth, low pollution”, shows that under the carbon price plan, Australia’s domestic greenhouse gas pollution will increase to 621 million tonnes of CO2-equivalent in 2020, bigger than now or in 2000.
Rodney Augustine is from the Nyulnyu and Jabirrjabirr people. He is a spokesperson for the “Walmadan Country is Calling” group and is a member of the “Keep the Kimberley” group, both based in Melbourne.
He will speak at the Climate Change Social Change activist conference in Melbourne, over September 30 to October 3.
The Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) will take place in Perth at the end of next month. It is a gathering of the government leaders of the 54 Commonwealth countries.
The Commonwealth today has direct links to the earlier structures of the British Empire in which colonialists of a previous era used to boast that the “sun never sets” on the places where they were killing and oppressing people.
Nicole Watson, a research fellow at the University of Technology Sydney’s Jumbunna Indigenous House of Learning, gave the address below at the Sydney launch of Walk With Us: Aboriginal Elders Call Out to Australian People to Walk with them in their Quest for Justice at Gleebooks, Sydney, on September 1.
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At the outset I would like to pay my respects to the traditional owners of the land, the Gadigal people.
Australian Solicitor-General Stephen Gageler, who defended the government’s Malaysia solution in the High Court, confirmed the court’s decision “cast doubt” on all offshore processing, immigration minister Chris Bowen said on September 4.
One hundred and twenty people packed out Gleebooks in Sydney on September 1 for the launch of Walk with Us — the latest book from the Aboriginal solidarity group Concerned Australians.
The book documents the detrimental impact of the Northern Territory intervention on Aboriginal people and features a call out from Aboriginal elders to Australians, asking them to walk with them in their quest for justice.
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