Sue Bolton, Melbourne
On July 21, the national council of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union expelled former AMWU Victorian secretary Craig Johnston from the union. The expulsion was another step in the attempt by the National Left faction
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Review by Lachlan Malloch Fahrenheit 9/11Written and directed by Michael MooreAt cinemas everywhere "[This] documentary has managed to ignite a fire in the collective belly of the American public", declared a Kansas City movie-goer after
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Iraq I John Howard assures us that the Flood report on Australia's intelligence services absolves the government of political interference. However, the decision to wage war on Iraq was a foregone conclusion. 9/11 enabled the Bush administration to
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Ray Jackson On St. Valentines Day, February 14, the Young Man from Kamilaroi — the 17-year-old son of Gail Hickey — was impaled on a metal fence in Waterloo. He died the next morning of his horrific injuries. The following day the so-called
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Up to 4.1 million Australians live in poverty. At least 1 million Australians live in poverty despite living in households with one or more employed adults. At least 700,000 children live in households where neither parent is employed. 21% of
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Virginia Brown, Perth A spate of racist graffiti and vandalism in Perth over the July 17-18 weekend has been linked to Jack van Tongeren's neo-Nazi Australian Nationalists Workers Union (ANWU). Racist stickers have been plastered over lamp-posts
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Sarah Stephen On July 14, officers from the Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs (DIMIA) forcibly moved four families from the Villawood detention centre in Sydney's south-west to the Baxter prison in the South
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Most striking about the re-make of the Stepford Wives movie — other than the irony that women now willingly dress much like the original Stepford wives — is the difference in the central character, Joanna. The movie has changed from thriller to
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The July 7 announcement that Australia will host three "training centres" for joint US-Australia military exercises has sparked widespread opposition. һƷ̽ Weekly's Kathy Newnam spoke to a range of organisations and activists from the Northern
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Rohan Pearce "I have long thought Michael Moore a liar, and should not have been shocked when I saw his 'documentary' Fahrenheit 9/11. Even so, I was horrified. This film — breaking box-office records in America — is so deceitful that it makes
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In the editorial in GLW #590, Kim Beazley was incorrectly described as the Hawke Labor government's defence minister at the time of the 1991 Gulf War. Beazley was defence minister in the Hawke government from 1984 until 1990. At the time of 1991 Gulf
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Over the next few weeks, the Socialist Alliance will be distributing 200,000 "postcards to John Howard" demanding the Australian government withdraw its troops from Iraq. The cards will be distributed from campaigning stalls outside screenings of
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Bill Mason, Brisbane The Queensland government is giving millions of dollars to some of the country's richest companies. Corporate giants such as Qantas, Macquarie Bank, Suncorp and APN News and Media were among the 42 companies to profit from
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Kerryn Williams "Australia's vote in the United Nations against the world court ruling that the so-called 'security barrier' in Israeli-occupied Palestine is illegal is a shameful act", said Lisa Macdonald, national co-convenor of the Socialist
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Susan Connolly One of the splendid things about human beings is our capacity to imagine an alternative future. This is part of the backbone of hope — hope in the conviction that life contains promise and some growth. We are at a time where we are
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Dave Riley, a Socialist Alliance activist, has set up the Who's with Michael Moore? web blog to provide activists and other movie-goers with an opportunity to express their views about Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 and the uproar it has provoked.
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Trent Hawkins, Perth Since the passing of the Nelson legislation, allowing universities to increase HECS fees by as much as 25%, 26 universities have voted to increase their HECS fees. Most have done so by the full 25%. While the Coalition
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James is the convenor of the ACT Network Opposing War. ACTNOW organised one of the largest protests in the history of Canberra on March 23, 2003, involving up to 20,000 people opposed to the war on Iraq. He passionately believes that foreign troops
News
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Chris Williams Outside cinemas around the country, a new "parliament of the streets" is developing as people discuss and debate Michael Moore's new film, Fahrenheit 9/11. Cinemas have been packed out by people attending previews of what is fast
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Saddam-lite I "[US-appointed Iraqi prime minister Iyad] Allawi was a Baathist, and his vision for Iraq almost seems like Saddam-lite or neo-Saddam in the sense that he believes in a strong central government and a large army which would also
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DARWIN — A Timor Sea Justice Campaign public meeting and video night on July 21 heard the latest developments in the campaign to stop the Australian government's theft of East Timor's oil and gas resources. Solidarity activist Robyn Waite, who
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Phil Chilton, Perth For the second time in a month, 30 refugee-rights activists maintained a vigil outside the Perth Immigration Detention Centre on July 17. Nine people stayed overnight. The vigil was initiated by the Refugee Rights Action
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Robyn Marshall, Brisbane On July 21, 70 people gathered outside the Queensland parliament to protest the defunding of the Queensland Aids Council (QuAC). For nearly 20 years, QuAC has delivered high quality services to people with HIV/AIDS.
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CANBERRA — Destruction of Canberra Nature Reserve by the ACT Labor government to make way for the Gungahlin Drive extension. A Save the Ridge protest rally took place at the site on July 24. Photo by Geoff Woolfenden.From һƷ̽ Weekly,
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Chris Latham, Perth On July 22, Australian Education Union WA school representatives condemned state education minister Allan Carpenter for planned unilateral changes to teachers' working conditions. On July 8, two days prior to the end of second
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The International Metalworkers Federation (IMF) is taking urgent action in support of its affiliate, the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU), in its fight to stop the James Hardie asbestos corporation depriving its former workers of
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Stop killer Coke! MELBOURNE — On July 22, "International Stop Killer Coke day", 100 people gathered at Federation Square in solidarity with workers in Colombia. Photo from <;. From һƷ̽ Weekly,
Analysis
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Former Australian spy chief Philip Flood presented a report on July 22, which found that the intelligence provided by Australia's spy agencies on Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction was "thin", "ambiguous" and "incomplete". Like the Butler
World
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Reihana Mohideen, North Cotabato City, Mindanao The Bangsa Moro people of Mindanao, in the southern Philippines, are fighting for national self-determination. Before the 20th century, 98% of the land in Mindanao and Sulu belonged to the Moros. In
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Jesse Butler In 2003, a court decision upheld the right of eight Maori tribes of the Marlborough Sands to pursue their claim that certain areas of the foreshore and seabed in the Sounds were customary Maori land. In response, the NZ government
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Doug Lorimer Under the headline "3 million Iraqis under militia rule", the July 17 Houston Chronicle reported that rebel Iraqi Shiite leader Sayed Moqtada al Sadr's Madhi Army has taken control of Baghdad's largest neighbourhood in defiance of
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Doug Lorimer Bakhtiar Amin, human rights minister in Washington's puppet Interim Government of Iraq, announced on July 19 that he would investigate a report carried exclusively by the July 17 Sydney Morning Herald that the IGI's prime minister,
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Protests mark World Bank's 60th birthday On July 22, activists around the world marked the World Bank's 60th birthday with a global day of protest. Protests were held in Jakarta, London, Geneva, Lima and Washington DC. In Potosi, a Bolivian mining
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Max Lane On the evening of July 22, more than 300 people gathered at the Jakarta Legal Aid Institute to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the founding of the People's Democratic Party (PRD). Film footage taken by PRD activists over the last 10
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Federico Fuentes Nine months after the popular revolt that ousted the previous president, the Bolivian and international media are trumpeting the result of the July 18 referendum on Bolivia's natural gas industry as a win for President Carlos
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Chris Harman Paul was a brilliant socialist writer, a speaker more able than any other to make people see what was wrong with capitalism, a tireless campaigner against injustice, and an investigative journalist whose revelations caused the
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Peter Verney At last, the catastrophe in the western Sudanese region of Darfur, a quarter of whose 6 million people are now displaced by war and whose lives are at serious risk as the rainy season begins, has gained international attention. For
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Azad Arman, an Iraqi Kurd now living in Melbourne, recently spent three months in northern Iraq. A member of the International Socialist Organisation, an affiliate of the Socialist Alliance, Arman spoke to һƷ̽ Weekly's Chris Slee. The
Culture
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Country Joe Band<; REVIEW BY NORMAN SOLOMON Taking the stage at a community centre in the small Northern California town of Bolinas, a group of four musicians quickly showed themselves to be returning as a
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Message Stick: Faith Thomas — Thomas became one of the first Indigenous nurses to graduate from the Royal Adelaide hospital; the first Aboriginal nurse in South Australia to become a public servant and run a hospital; and the only Aboriginal woman
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REVIEW BY PIP HINMAN Axis of DeceitBy Andrew WilkieBlack Inc. Agenda, 2004200 pages, $29.95 (pb) Andrew Wilkie rose to global prominence as the only spook working for a "coalition of the willing" government to resign in protest against the
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Heard about boy who wanted to be girl.Pretended til reality beat her dead on topof barbed wire fence. brandon astor. no longer.He got laughed at, she got teasedfor looking at the same sex withlust, longing, defiant and pleasejust understand and hold
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Dialectics for Kids websiteBy Jack Lucero Fleck<; REVIEW BY DAVE RILEY At the mere mention of dialectical materialism there's sure to be some groans. Diamat is that part of Marxism that is supposedly the