In the week Barack Obama received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009, he ordered bombing attacks on Yemen, killing a reported 63 people, 28 of them children. When Obama recently announced he supported same-sex marriage, American planes had not long blown 14 Afghan civilians to bits.
In both cases, the mass murder was barely news. What mattered were the cynical vacuities of a political celebrity, the product of a zeitgeist driven by the forces of consumerism and the media with the aim of diverting the struggle for social and economic justice.
Analysis
Towards a Socialist Australia was adopted as a draft by the 8th National Conference of the Socialist Alliance, held in Sydney, over January 20-22, 2012.
Socialist Alliance also voted to consult with members, supporters and allies in the social movements over the coming months to improve this draft and deepen our collective understanding of the current political climate and the nature of the economic and environmental crises.
In South Australia, where abortion is still legally considered a crime under the Criminal Act, women do not have the legal right to make their own reproductive choices. What we have now is tenuous and limited access to abortions through an underfunded healthcare system.
Now, this access is under attack. Family First MP Robert Brokenshire has introduced into the SA upper house the Births, Deaths and Marriages Registration (Registration of Still-Births) Amendment Bill (also known as Jayden’s Law), which will be put to a vote on May 16.
Over only a few days, more than 1000 families from 60 Australian cities and towns volunteered to host asylum seekers awaiting a protection visa, under a government scheme to release more refugees from detention.
From next month, the Australian Homestay Network, the Red Cross and the federal government will coordinate to place asylum seekers released from detention on bridging visas in Australian households for a six-week stay.
Online campaigner GetUp! made a call-out to its members on May 3 and the Homestay network wrote to its 5000-member base asking for help.
"We are all Greeks" was the proud solidarity message worn by many at the Sydney May Day march on May 6. This simple message captured the widespread solidarity felt with the working people of Greece — including the unemployed, pensioners, students and small business owners — who are being forced to pay a painful price to bail out the biggest banks in the world.
Supporters of the National Campaign for the Right To Strike initiated the sign-on statement below.
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Australian law has never provided for the unrestricted right to strike. The first Australian industrial law, the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Act of 1904, penalised Australian striking workers with fines and jail sentences.
Before that, Australian workers had to comply with the British Master and Servants Act of 1837, which meant that a worker could face jail if they were absent from work for an hour without permission.
Fair Work Australia’s findings into the Health Services Union (HSU) have revealed serious breaches of the union’s rules, as well as federal regulations governing registered organisations.
“Right Greece, up against that wall over there. Here, put that blindfold on... what’s that? No you can’t have a last fucking cigarette, you are too broke. You flogged your last pack off to Goldman Sachs.”
If the International Monetary Fund (IMF) was honest, this is how its press releases would read when describing the brutal austerity the “troika” of the IMF, European Union and European Central Bank demands from Greece in return for funds to stop the country going bankrupt.
In a display of non-partisanship, Marrickville Council put the community first by voting unanimously to lock the gate on coal seam gas (CSG) mining on May 8.
Local stop coal seam gas activists urged councillors to prohibit a private waste disposal and recycling company — Alexandria Landfill — from being allowed to sub-contract its site in St Peters to a CSG miner for exploration and pilot drilling.
The University of Sydney Vice-Chancellor Michael Spence and the university Senate further displayed their “democratic” views on May 7 by sending riot police to break up protests by more than 500 students and staff.
Protesters disagreed with the flawed plan to carry out budget cuts and retrench staff.
Spence also sent an email to all staff damning the protesters as “outside agitators”, even though the protest was organised by the student-led Education Action Group (EAG) and the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU).
On the same day that 8000 farmers, environmentalists, the Country Women’s Association and others took part in Australia's biggest rally against coal seam gas (CSG) mining, the NSW mining industry launched a website to “dispel myths” about the industry.
Website creator the Minerals Council of NSW includes the state's biggest mining companies: Anglo American, BHP Billiton, Barrick Gold, Peabody, Rio Tinto, Shenhua and Xstrata.
Green Left columnist Carlos Sands rants, raves, and is literally moved to tears by the arguments of defenders of Israel in his second outing on Green Left TV. And as 19 Palestine solidarity activists face court in Melbourne, he has some choice words for Max Brenner and the Murdoch media.
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