There is a dangerous escalation of transphobia happening right now. The political right in the United States and the United Kingdom are rolling back civil rights for trans people specifically and LGBT people more broadly. This is being driven by an amalgamation of mainstream conservative parties, the far right, Christian fundamentalists and right-wing shock jocks and tabloids.
The global economy has been in turmoil since the start of the pandemic—collapse, rebound, inflationary spiral. Now, “It’s the ‘Godot’ recession”, Ray Farris, chief economist at Credit Suisse, told the Wall Street Journal in early March. Everyone waits but it doesn’t seem to come. Every few months, economic forecasts flip from contraction to slowdown to cautious optimism about sustained growth.
The Australian Greens achieved unprecedented success at the last federal election, gaining their highest ever number of parliamentary seats after putting forward a left-wing platform calling for including dental and mental health in Medicare, the wiping of student debt, 1 million affordable homes, free child care and income-support increases.
Last week’s conclusion of the Royal Commission into the Robodebt scheme has once again brought national attention to the program that, from 2015 to 2019, saw nearly half a million welfare recipients hounded over unlawful fake debts concocted using faulty calculations.
Hundreds of students protested across the country on Friday 17 March to demand an end to fossil fuels and taxes on the rich and big corporations to fund a shift to renewables and decarbonisation of the economy. The protests, organised by the National Union of Students, criticised the Labor government for approving major new coal and gas projects when the world needs to rapidly reduce emissions.
To wage a war for empire, the political, industrial, economic and social forces in society must be combined and organised to unleash murder and destruction on a colossal scale. To stop such an obscenity is no easy thing.
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If we don’t want Australia to be drawn into a devastating war with China that could cost tens if not hundreds of thousands, or even millions of lives, we need to break the military alliance with the United States.
It took a night-time protest by anti-LGBTI bigots through the Sydney suburb of Newtown to bring the group “Christian Lives Matter” to public view.
The draconian fifteen-month prison sentence imposed on climate activist Violet Coco has been overturned in New South Wales.
Thousands of people attended a far-right anti-LGBTI rally in Sydney on 18 March. The protest was organised by an alliance of conservative religious organisations, led by Christian Lives Matter, under the banner “protect the children” from the supposed threat of trans people in particular and LGBTI people more generally.
Sick of capitalism? Yeah, us too. That’s why we’re organising the Marxism Conference, the biggest anti-capitalist gathering in Australia. Here are seven reasons why you should join us over the Easter weekend.
“Australia has always pursued a world without nuclear weapons”, tweeted Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong on 5 March, the first International Day for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation Awareness. “We are redoubling our efforts towards this goal and to strengthening the non-proliferation regime.”
Rachel Corrie, an American Palestine-solidarity activist, was crushed to death by an Israeli bulldozer twenty years ago this month. She was murdered by the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) while attempting to defend a Palestinian home from demolition in Rafah, a city in the blockaded Gaza Strip. Samir Nazrallah, whose home Corrie was trying to protect, told Al-Monitor: “I was watching what was happening through a hole in the house’s wall. I remember that the driver pulled out the soil from under Rachel’s feet, which made her lose balance, and then, when she fell, he ran over her”.
Trans rights supporters protested over the weekend against the speaking tour of UK right-wing activist and transphobe Kellie Jay Keen, also known by the pseudonym Posie Parker.
University of Sydney staff went on strike for the fifth time in a year on 9 March. Tutors, lecturers and professional staff refused to teach classes, answer emails or attend to their regular duties for 24 hours. Eastern Avenue, normally a densely packed thoroughfare, was deserted. Fisher Library, where most students go to study on campus, was empty. The only activity occurred at the entrances to campus, where the National Tertiary Education Union had formed picket lines of staff, supported by students, to enforce the strike.
“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free”. In her 1883 sonnet “The New Colossus”, Jewish-American poet and activist Emma Lazarus imagined the newly built Statue of Liberty speaking these words, symbolising hope for “tempest-tost” refugees seeking safety and a better life. Engraved on a bronze plaque, her poem adorns the pedestal upon which “Lady Liberty” stands to this day.
Perth activists converged on the Yongah Hill detention centre on 6 March to protest against the imminent deportation of more than twenty Tamil refugees to Sri Lanka.
In February 1917, as Europe was tearing itself apart in the carnage of World War One, a socialist youth group in the Italian region of Piedmont released a pamphlet titled La città futura (The city of the future). The pamphlet was written by 26-year-old Antonio Gramsci, later to become famous as a pioneer of the Italian communist movement and author of the Prison Notebooks, written during his long confinement under the fascist regime of Benito Mussolini.