November 11 marks the 100th anniversay of the end of World War I, but not before tens of millions died in the four-year-long unprecedented industrial carnage. Amid all the media coverage, almost entirely missing is the actual story of how such bloodshed and misery was ended: by a mass popular rebellion in Germany that brought down the monarchy and established a republic.

The rebellion did not end in Germany on November 11, but continued for a further five years in revolutionary waves that nearl established a soviet republic. The failure of the workers' movement to win full power opened the way for a fascist-led counter-revulution -- and the rise of the Nazis. 

The war was aleady a major cause of rebellion from Ireland's 1916 Easter Rising to the October 1917 socialst revolution in Russia. but this radicalisation across Europe by the war's victims is often written out. 

Trans and gender diverse people in the US are preparing to fight for their lives — literally — against a push by the Republican religious right to quash life-saving laws protecting them from discrimination.

The November 6 midterm elections should have been a ringing repudiation of Donald Trump and the Republican Party. And if not for the dismal state of US “democracy” and the two-party system, it would have been.

While the transphobes in the federal Coalition government have not given up on pushing their anti-trans agenda, they face some stiff challenges, according Transgender Victoria spokesperson Sally Goldner.

Last year’s marriage equality postal survey caused a lot of pain for the LGBTI community. But Goldner told Green Left Weekly that the overwhelming Yes vote helped push the homophobes and transphobes back.

“The immediate crushing of [Prime Minister Scott] Morrison’s ‘gender whisperer’ ideas proves that while transphobes are — as usual — trying to light the fires of transphobia, the flames aren’t catching,” Goldner said.

Morrison took to Twitter in early September to assert that teachers were encouraging children to question their gender after a Daily Telegraph article claimed teachers were contributing to a “surge” in the number of children identifying as trans.

The push back came quickly, and from many quarters.

As Palestine’s national day on November 15 and the 34th consecutive Friday of the Great March of Return set for the next day approach, Palestinians in Gaza look set to be handed an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire deal. Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, meanwhile, look set to face the death penalty if they are convicted of “terrorism”.  

By calling Armistice Day on November 11 “Remembrance Day” we miss the point. The original Armistice Day in 1918 was a day of joy, celebrating the end of a hugely bloody war. As one newspaper at the time described it: “Whole country goes wild with joy at news of peace”.  

November 6 marked 43 years of Morocco’s occupation of the Western Sahara, which has forced the Saharawis to continue living in precarious conditions in the desert.

Proposed amendments to the Criminal Code Act of 1995 will make it impossible for media organisations to accurately report on what governments do behind closed doors, writes Jacob Andrewartha.