Analysis

On June 5, I joined a suburban World Environment Day campaigning stall organised by Resistance, a socialist youth group in Australia.

Like many others, I cut my activist teeth during the Franklin River campaign of the early 1980s. Like thousands of others, I joined the blockades in south west Tasmania and, like hundreds of others, was arrested for my troubles and spent a week in Risdon Jail.

“The thought of our beautiful Camden accommodating to this religion is a disgrace … This Islamic school will change the town forever”, “Hayley”, a Camden resident, was quoted by the November 6 Sydney Morning Herald as saying in relation to an attempt to build an Islamic school in the far-outer Sydney suburb.

Twenty-first century capitalism has sentenced millions of workers to near slavery in the form of various migrant labour schemes that underpin the mega profits of many giant corporations. From Singapore to Dubai to the US, such schemes spell super-exploitation. So would a “guest worker” scheme in Australia be much less exploitative?

When 72-year-olds take their shirts off in anger on a cold winter’s day in Melbourne, you know something is wrong. Seriously wrong.

Green Left Weekly asked these Resistance activists what they hope to get out of the national conference in Sydney later this month.

Melbourne is drowning in cars and choking on petrol fumes. At the same time, the privatised public transport system is in serious crisis.

Afghanistan Tony Iltis (GLW #752)makes much of the West's fumbling and imperialistic attitude towards Afghanistan in modern history. What he neglects to mention is that polling of Afghans has, consistently since the invasion, conclusively shown

Organised racism scored a win on May 27, when Camden Council voted unanimously to reject a proposal to build the 1200 student Al Amanah Islamic College in the south-western Sydney suburb.

“They must think we are all idiots”, said an exasperated Friend of Green Left last week in response to the parliamentary debate about rising petrol prices.

NSW teachers are not only against the Labor government’s staffing changes in public schools: they oppose the Department of Education’s (DET) move to strip union representatives from selection panels determining teacher transfers.

Joseph Bryan, Kevin Rudd’s, politicians, tax cuts, Stolen Generation, Northern Territory, 2020 Summit