Youth & students

Resistance: Young Socialist Alliance’s “A World to Win” series aims to give voice to the ideas and demands of radical young people who are involved in the struggle to make the world a fairer and more just place. This week, Sarah Hathway discusses the struggle and exploitation of young people in the workplace. * * * There are many issues facing young people in or entering the workplace that impact not just on young people but on the broader working class as well.

There are sprawling industries and self-proclaimed career “terrorism experts” in the US that profit greatly by deliberately exaggerating the threat of terrorism and keeping Americans in a state of abject fear of “radical Islam”. All sorts of polemicists build their public platforms by demonising Muslims and scoffing at concerns over “Islamophobia”. The most toxic ones insist that such a thing does not even exist, even as the mere presence of mosques is opposed across the country and are physically attacked.

Resistance: Young Socialist Alliance will host its second Radical Ideas Conference over December 4 to 6 in Sydney. Following the success of last year’s conference, hosted in Geelong, Resistance activists say this conference will help energise young people to struggle against corporate power, environmental destruction and social exclusion. The conference will have workshops and panels including discussions on topics such as combating the austerity agenda of the 1%, fighting back against racism, Islamophobia and colonialism and the struggle for environmental justice.

Resistance: Young Socialist Alliance’s “World to Win” series aims to give voice to the ideas and demands of radical young people who are involved in the struggle to make the world a fairer and more just place. This week, Resistance National Co-Convener, Mia Sanders discusses the importance of the ongoing struggle for full reproductive rights. * * * “But we’re equal now! Why do we need feminism?”

#BlackLivesMatter activists Marissa Johnson and Mara Willaford stormed the stage as Sanders began speaking and demanded an opportunity to address racial injustice. Seattle, August 8. There is a lull in the large mass mobilisations associated with the Black Lives Matter movement, but the campaign targetting racism and police brutality remains central to politics in the US.

The white police officer who shot two unarmed Black youths in May in Thurston County, Washington state, will not face criminal charges, the Thurston County Prosecutor announced on September 2, because the youths’ skateboards were said to be “threatening” the officer. Prosecutor Jon Tunheim said that rather than charging the cop, whose bullets left one of the young men paralysed from the waist down, assault charges would be filed against the two men, Bryson Chaplin, 21, and Andre Thompson, 24.

Resistance: Young Socialist Alliance’s “World to Win” series aims to give voice to the ideas and demands of radical young people who are involved in the struggle to make the world a fairer and more just place. This week, Maryam Allami and Claire Thoen discuss the struggle of transgender people against systemic oppression and the possibilities of liberation. * * *

The University of Queensland Resistance Club has joined with other student clubs to call on the university administration to divest money from fossil fuels. The university has an undisclosed amount of money invested in projects whose emissions jeopardise the future of the young people that UQ is supposed to be educating.

Resistance: Young Socialist Alliance’s “World to Win” series, aims to give voice to the ideas and aspirations of radical young people who are involved in the struggle for social change. This week, Murray Taylor discusses the ideas behind wealth inequality and the demand for redistribution. * * * Remember how Treasurer Joe Hockey promised that all Australians would pay an equal share in his efforts to balance the budget and assist in this recovery?

Universal Basic Income (UBI) is not a new idea. But it is an idea whose time has come. It is one of the simplest, most obvious pieces of social policy imaginable: every member of a society, with no exceptions, is entitled to enough money to live on. Eligibility is not conditional on age or employment status, or education or criminal record like the poorly-built social welfare programs of modern Australia that have deep, but invisible, cracks for the most vulnerable to fall into.

Rallies calling for marriage equality were held in major cities across Australia over the past few weekends. The turnout was large, with numbers reaching the thousands. The overwhelming presence of youth was particularly noticeable. In many areas of the LGBTI struggle today, youth are helping lead the charge. Opinion polls conducted by Australian Marriage Equality found that 80% of those under 24 support equal marriage, the highest percentage for any demographic group.

The conservative right has launched a last ditch campaign to swing public opinion away from support for marriage equality. The Marriage Alliance, a new organisation dedicated to opposing what it sees as a threat to “family values”, was launched on August 2. Backed by wealthy businesspeople, the campaign hopes to scare people away from marriage equality by raising vague but menacing threats about damage to children and loss of “rights and freedoms”.