As the plight of child asylum seekers separated from their parents fades from the news, hundreds of children remain incarcerated and separated from their families, writes Barry Sheppard from San Francisco.
Racism
There was once a time when racist, divisive and discriminatory commentary would be condemned by many viewers and readers of the establishment media. Not any more.
'Class consciousness is knowing which side of the fence you’re on. Class analysis is figuring out who is there with you.' — Slogan from a 1970s poster, author unknown.
The newly formed "Industrial Left" faction of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) in Victoria combined with the right at the party's state conference on May 28 to block discussion about imposing a 90 day time limit on offshore detention.
Green Left Radio on 3CR spoke to Anas Alwakil, a Sudanese community activist and Nawal Ali, a social worker and advocate for women, on January 19 about the federal government’s fear-mongering and the so-called Sudanese gang crime wave that has hit Victoria.
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The National Union of Workers (NUW) joined with Melbourne’s Rohingya community on September 7 to protest the genocide against Rohingya in Myanmar. The NUW has formed a strong bond with the Rohingya community through its work organising Rohingya and other heavily exploited migrant farm workers to win better wages and working conditions.
Many members of the Rohingya community in Melbourne have family members who have been killed in the current genocidal attacks on Rohingya in Myanmar.
My bias is real. When it comes to tennis legends Venus and Serena Williams, they have never been just athletes to me, but people. I have felt an imperative to defend them against detractors, know-nothings and dime-store bigots.
The reasons are obvious: they were once two Black teenagers from the public courts of Compton, treated with contempt — of both a race and class variety — by their sport. They not only survived but thrived.
US President Donald Trump sent his vice-president Mike Pence on a beat-the-drums-of-war Asia-Pacific tour and even before Pence got to Australia, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull started talking Trumplish.
He regurgitated Trump's jingoistic riffs with near word-for-word precision: “Australia and Australians first”, “Australian values”.
Hannah Holleman is a US activist and assistant professor of sociology at Amherst College in Massachusetts.
Her recent articles include “De-naturalizing Ecological Disaster: Colonialism, Racism and the Global Dust Bowl of the 1930s” in The Journal of Peasant Studies.
She was interviewed by David Kiely on the legacy of imperialism in relation to the fight for climate justice. It is abridged from LeftVoice.org.
Pauline Hanson came across a racist and incoherent cartoon character on the ABC's Q&A program on July 18.
But it would be a mistake to think that Hanson, and the more than half a million people who voted for her in the July 2 federal election, can simply be laughed away. They represent, in a distorted way, the deepening contradictions in our society that have to be addressed at their root.
The myth of the egalitarianism of Australia is cracking up after 50 years of Coalition and Labor Party governments helping the super rich get even richer at the expense of the rest.
Right-wing racist Andrew Bolt's television show The Bolt Report has been axed by Channel Ten, according The Australian.
Ten reportedly charged News Corp about $2 million a year for using its facilities to produce and broadcast the Sunday morning political discussion program. The program was not included in Ten's lineup for 2016.
Brisbane
See a film at Red Cinema: Disruption. This film looks at the 2014 People’s Climate March in New York. Entry $15/$10 conc. Meal and drinks available. Friday November 6 at 6pm. Brisbane Activist Centre, 74B Wickham St, Fortitude Valley. Phone Angus 0431 935 576.
Melbourne
Most musicians baulk at being asked difficult questions and some have even asked Green Left Weekly to "make the questions less heavy". But Aki Nawaz of British Asian soundclash provocateurs Fun Da Mental is no ordinary musician.
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