Socialism

The Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples is inviting all friends of Cuba to join the sixth International Brigade of Volunteer Work and Solidarity with Cuba this May Day. The brigade runs from April 22 to May 6 this year. It aims to provide a wider understanding of Cuban reality and carry out volunteer work to support agricultural development in Cuba. The 15-day program includes visits to historical, economic, cultural and social places in Havana and the provinces of Artemisa and Pinar del Rio.

A string of banks, airlines, car manufacturers and aluminium smelters — all big corporations that have profited for years while extorting billions of dollars in public subsidies — have spat in the face of our society. They have begun huge sackings of workers, even though Australia supposedly escaped the worst of capitalism’s global economic crisis. The big banks have posted record profits, but they refuse to pass on interest rate cuts to families struggling to keep up with huge home mortgages.

If you have just begun studying, welcome to university. If you’ve been looking through the pamphlets and advertising material for your campus of choice, you’ve probably been led to believe that university largely revolves around sitting on lawns on nice days laughing with attractive young people. If you’ve been watching too many American films, you might be expecting wild parties and crazy weekends. Or if you’re academically minded, you might just be expecting to broaden your horizons with new and exotic ideas.

Why Marx Was Right By Terry Eagleton Yale University Press, 2011 272 pp., $32.95 In August, the Wall Street Journal website ran a video of an interview with Nouriel Roubini as its top story under the headline, "Roubini: Marx was Right." Roubini is a mainstream economist who achieved fame by predicting the 2008 financial collapse, earning himself the nickname "Dr. Doom" among the Wall Street speculators.

The Socialist Alliance released the statement below on February 11. * * * Labor and Liberals protecting profits not jobs Retool the car industry for public transport vehicles and renewable energy

The Socialist Alliance released the statement below on February 9. * * * Socialist Alliance supports, and expresses its full solidarity with, the Syrian people’s democratic uprising against the tyrant Bashar al-Assad. We also condemn the interference by Western imperialist powers and the threats of military intervention. Further, we call on the Australian government to extract itself from the US alliance and its involvement in aggressive multinational military operations.

Rupert Murdoch's flagship newspaper, The Australian, has been on a campaign to destroy the Greens because the party represents a big electoral break from the two-parties-for-capitalism system that has dominated politics in this country for more than a century. In the past two weeks, this campaign has been hyped into McCarthyite Cold War hysteria.

The eighth national conference of the Socialist Alliance in Australia decided to take a draft document titled “Towards a socialist Australia” through a nationwide public discussion and consultation process to promote a wide discussion about socialism in the 21st century.

Bob Briton, the Communist Party of Australia (CPA) by-election candidate for the seat of Port Adelaide, launched his campaign at a function on January 21.

A Perth educator, author and long-time activist, Mary (Mairi) McKenzie, died on New Year's Eve at the age of 94. Mary discovered early what life was like in a society with little welfare and few rights for workers and the unemployed. At the age of 10, she lost her mother to tuberculosis, making her effectively the mother figure for her seven younger siblings. At the age of 13 she left school to undertake their full-time care.

After an intense year of political activity in 2011, Socialist Alliance members have been preparing for the organisation’s eighth national conference, which will be held in Sydney over January 20-22.

Because there is a better way A safer way to touch and cradle humanity Because understanding starts with understanding And understanding that is just the start.