Culture

  • Summer reading: Recommended books of 2012

    For its final issue of 2012, Green Left asked staff, contributors and others to name their book of the year. Mel Barnes Co-editor of Green Left Weekly Mine-field By Paul Cleary Black Inc http://bit.ly/NdE39u In his follow-up to Too Much Luck, Paul Cleary travels throughout Australia to speak to people affected by the rapid coal and coal seam gas expansion taking place.

  • The Marx Dictionary: A good, but not perfect, introduction to Marxism

    “A is for Alienation, that made me the man that I am, and B's for the Boss who's a Bastard, a Bourgeois who don't give a damn.” So goes Scottish folk singer Alex Glasgow’s witty song, “The Socialist ABC”, which is a succinct introduction to Marxism. However, for a slightly more rounded alphabetical introduction this volume is very good. In it the authors manage to condense quite readable explanations of some of the Western intellectual tradition’s most challenging concepts.

  • Radical rhymer raps for revolution

    Darah says it was a fellow Aboriginal rapper who inspired him to take a more radical direction on his latest album, I Believe In Revolution. "This whole album was largely inspired by Big Luke’s album Message From A Black Man," the Victorian emcee tells Green Left.

  • Rod Quantock: Comics need a 'united front' on progressive politics

    Rod Quantock, the “Australian institution” of comedy, is set to headline a special one-off comedy show in Marrickville, Sydney, on December 8 in aid of the Australian Fair Trade & Investment Network (AFTINET). Quantock ― winner of the Melbourne Comedy Festival 2012’s Director’s Choice Award ― will be joined at the Red Rattler by comedians Matt Wakefield, Alice Fraser, Justine Rogers and James Colley, as well as resident Englishman, Jazz Twemlow for the benefit gig.

  • Femcee Kayemtee raps for queer rights

    Jimmy Barnes is probably the most heterosexual man in Australia - but he has now inspired probably the best homosexual rap tune to come out of the country.

  • Heavyweight hip-hopper builds a fine body of work

    Rapper JPoint is building up a strong body of work - and not just in the music world. The Indigenous emcee runs his own record label, produces music for other artists and has a string of releases under his belt. But he is also competing above the belt - by entering his first body-building contest. For JPoint, it's been a transformation.

  • Anti-working class prejudices skewered in Jones' book

    Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class By Owen Jones Verso updated 2012 300 pages, $15:00 “It's not the existence of classes that threatens the unity of the nation, but the existence of class feeling,” an official British Conservative Party document stated in 1976. Indeed, abolishing classes was the last thing on the mind of the Tories' new leader at the time, Margaret Thatcher. She merely wanted people to forget which class they belonged to, says Owen Jones in Chavs.

  • The harsh logic of occupying other people's countries

    Soldaten, On Fighting, Killing & Dying: The Secret WWII Transcripts of German POWs By Sonke Neitzel & Harald Welzer Scribe Publications, 2012 448pp, $22.99 Our Harsh Logic, Israeli Soldiers Testimonies from the Occupies Territories, 2000-2010 Compiled by Breaking the Silence Scribe Publications, 2012 400pp, $22.99 There is unmitigated evil in both these books ― cruelty, violence, criminal’s countries. The fact that the awful truth comes out of the mouths of the perpetrators makes it all the more shocking.

  • Dreddful politics in enjoyable action film

    Dredd/strong> Directed by Peter Travis Starring Karl Urban, Olivia Thirlby, Lena Headey & Wood Harris In cinemas now As far as action movies go, Dredd deserves to be praised as an enjoyable example of the genre. However, the only way progressive-minded people will be able to stomach it is to avoid thinking about the political implications of the world of Judge Dredd (played by Karl Urban).

  • Rapper goes from petty crime to stealing the show

    When George Sambo was about seven years old, he used a wad of crooked cash to shout all his mates sausage rolls. The Queensland schoolboy couldn't have known then that those fatty rolls would set him rolling on a path to making phat rolling beats. But that's what happened.