Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Green Left - a people's power media project

Green Left is a people's power alternative media project. It is Australia's leading progressive publication but the internet also gives it global reach. Many of its readers and writers are brought together from many corners of the world. Please help write for, distribute and support it!

We are currently running a drive for more subscriptions. If you read it on the internet, please consider taking out an internet subscription. Introduce Green Left to a friend, workmate or relative by giving them a gift subscription.

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Tuesday, August 11, 2009

'We can phase out coal and create jobs': Graham Brown

Graham Brown, a retired coalminer from Australia's Hunter Valley, is on a national speaking tour to call for a serious program to create green jobs and phase out coal. The tour is being organised by Resistance, a socialist youth organisation. Details of the tour here.

Sunday, July 5, 2009

AUDIO: Coup in Honduras - eyewitness report




Toni covers the Honduran coup


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Original audio source (Honduras.mp3)


AUDIO:Simon Butler on Population Control in Response to Climate Change

Recently a discussion has surfaced about whether population control schemes could feature in the policy aims of the Australian Climate Change movement.

Simon Butler is an analyst and contributor to Green Left Weekly who argues that the proponents of population control schemes completely miss the underlying causes of climate change.

Julia started by asking Simon about the history of such schemes and the lessons we can learn about their previous implementations.

This talk was broadcast on Radio Adelaide on the 10th of June.

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Wednesday, June 17, 2009

SLIDESHOW: Climate Emergency rallies around the country

Last Saturday's environment rallies came off as a great beginning to the movement we need to build urgently. See GLW report here:Thousands rally for 100% renewables by 2020

Here are a few presentations on the rallies:



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Wollongong

Cairns

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Perth

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Sydney

Sydney

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Hobart

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Melbourne

Wollongong actions against climate change

In Wollongong the Socialist Alliance branch is doing great work. There's a significant coming together on the left which suggest that 'left unity' is indeed a very viable project when away from those who would dismiss its promise (and actuality).

Here are 2 reports featuring local SA members and supporters on the recent climate protests.

Chris Williams is the local Socialist Alliance convenor and Jess Moore is national co-organiser of socialist youth organisation Resistance.


Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Rights on Site - Ark Tribe Prosecuted

From Rights On Site

Ark Tribe is a construction worker from South Australia facing six months in jail. He has been charged with not attending an interview with the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC).

Ark was working on the Flinders University site in Adelaide. Conditions were so bad that workers drew up a petition calling for safety improvements, on a handtowel.

It took an intervention by the union and the state government safety regulator to get the most pressing problems fixed and finally, after several days, things began to get back on track.

One by one workers from the site were called before the ABCC.

The penalties for those who don't cooperate with ABCC investigations are frightening - fines of up to $22,000 for things like stopping work to make sure workers are safe and jail for up to 6 months if you don't answer their questions. Even the police don't have the powers the ABCC have.

In Ark's words, "If I've done something wrong, I'm prepared to cop it, but I won't be treated unfairly."

We need to get the Rudd Labor Government to get rid of these laws, before another construction worker faces jail.

Audio: The Rise of China and the Demise of the Capitalist World Economy By Minqi Li

Minqi Li is Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of Utah and the author of The Rise of China and the Demise of the Capitalist World Economy among other publications. This lecture was delivered at the Marxist School of Sacramento on 21 May 2009.

Source:Creative i



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Monday, June 1, 2009

AUDIO:Building Bridges: Tariq Ali - Afghanistan/Pakistan - Danger Ahead

The west's 'good war' in Afghanistan has turned bad. Spreading the war to Pakistan was a disaster. for A local solution involving all the powers in the area, rather than a neocolonial one, is needed.

Speaker: Tariq Ali


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Wednesday, May 27, 2009

The Scottish Socialist Party Alternative Summit...

On 16th April 2009, Gordon Brown and his New Labour Cabinet met in the SECC, Glasgow to discuss their reaction to the current stage in the economic crisis. Two weeks later, the Scottish Socialist Party European Election candidates met informally at the same venue. The video shows the SSP alternatives to the decisions made by the "Glasgow Cabinet"...
Promoted by Pam Currie on behalf of the Scottish Socialist Party, Suite
308/310, 4th Floor Central Chambers 93 Hope St, Glasgow G2 6LD.


'Climate Change' Human Sign - St Kilda Beach, Melbourne Australia - May 17, 2009


More than 5,000 people gathered to spell out the words "Climate Change - The Future Is In Your Hands' on St Kilda Beach in Melbourne, Australia.
www.sisinc.com.au

Sunday, April 26, 2009

International Day of Mourning (28th April 2009)



Via Rights on Site
28 April is International workers day of mourning. A day to commemorate workers who have died on the job.

On construction sites around Australia, construction workers will stop for a minute’s silence to remember their work mates.

Our construction industry is one of the toughest industries to work in and statistics show that one construction workers is killed a week in Australia. Hundreds more are injured.

But each year millions of dollars is spent on the Australian Building and Construction Commission, an organisation which undermines workers rights and safety.

That’s why we’re campaigning to get rid of the ABCC and the laws that keep it in place.

TAKE ACTION NOW -
sign the online petition!


Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Michael Lebowitz: What would Marx say today?

Michael Lebowitz addresses the World at a Crossroads conference. Photo by Alex Bainbridge.

Is it time to dust off a copy of Das Kapital and revisit Marx's analysis of capitalism's ills?

Michael Lebowitz has recently been in Australia as a featured guest of the World at a Crossroads conference, held in Sydney April 10-12, organised by the Democratic Socialist Perspective and Green Left Weekly. He was interviewed by the ABC Radio's Late Night Live on April 14, 2009.

Original audio source (lnl_20090414_2218.mp3)

Guests:

Michael A. Lebowitz
Professor emeritus of economics at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada. He is a program coordinator with the Centro International Miranda, Caracas, Venezuela.

William Coleman
Reader at the school of economics of the Australian National University; editor of Agenda: a Journal of Policy Analysis and Reform.

Further Information:

``The Path to Human Development'' -- Michael A. Lebowitz

Publications

Beyond Capital, Marx's Political Economy of the Working Class
Michael A. Lebowitz
Palgrave Macmillan (Second Edition, 2003)

Story researcher and producer: Sasha Fegan

Sunday, April 5, 2009

Marxist Geographer David Harvey on the G20, the Financial Crisis and Neoliberalism

For some analysis on the G20 summit and the financial crisis, Democracy Now speaks to a leading thinker on the global economy. David Harvey is a Marxist geographer and distinguished professor of anthropology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He is the author of several books, including The Limits to Capital and A Brief History of Neoliberalism.






Monday, March 23, 2009

John Bellamy Foster on the economic and ecological crises: `The common denominator is capitalism'



John Bellamy Foster interviewed by Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal/Green Left Weekly's Ruth Ratcliffe

A 20-minute interview recorded with a handheld cam in Oregon, USA, in February 2009. John Bellamy Foster is editor of Monthy Review and professor of sociology at the University of Oregon. He is co-author, with Fred Magdoff, of The Great Financial Crisis: Causes and Consequences (Monthly Review Press, January 2009) among numerous other works. Foster discusses the global economic crisis, its implications for the world and particularly the Australian economy. He also discusses the ecological crisis and the potential for revolutionary change.


Tuesday, March 17, 2009

David Harvey Interviewed by Laura Flanders

The End of Capitalism? - A Response to Tim Geithner
GRITtv
Wednesday March 11, 2009 8:00 pm

Kiefer Sutherland Presents Mouseland

Via Renegade Eye:



You know Kiefer Sutherland as the star of hit television show 24, or the son of actor Donald Sutherland. He is also grandson of the founder of the New Democratic Party Tommy Douglas. The NDP is Canada's labor party.

Kiefer presents with the help of his grandfather's words and Mouseland Players, a valuable political lesson.

More Australians in El Salvador - Ovidio Orellanos



The day before the elections a group of Australian volunteers met at one of the FMLN headquarters to prepare themselves for their role of international mobservers. Many of them were Salvadorans who had been forced to emigrate to Australia as political refugees, in the 1980s. They were keen to be present at a time when the ARENA `party, founded by the people responsible for their forced exile had to face an electoral defeat.

Ovidio Orellanos is a Guatemalan by birth. The death squads of El Salvador modelled themselves on a similar movement in Guatemala, called ¨The White Hand¨. Ovidio tells us what these elections mean to him.

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