Watts Riot of 1965 — how the rioters treated ‘their’ community then This is the original text of an article commissioned by ABC’s The Drum, which was published yesterday and can be found here. The riots in the United Kingdom, mainly involving school age and unemployed youth, have provoked a backlash that seeks to paint them […]
11 Aug
Comments Off on Whoever expects a ‘pure’ revolution will never live to see it: The UK riots in perspective
Mark Duggan, whose killing by police sparked the riots Maybe it’s a sign of the times, but for mine the most depressing thing about the UK riots is how some on the Left feel the need to loudly proclaim their lack of solidarity with some of the poorest and most oppressed people in society, instead resorting […]
25 Jul
Comments Off on Terror in the eye of the beholder? Norway, the far Right & the state-media complex
This weekend was a salutary lesson in how terrorism is treated by the media and political establishment. The lesson may surprise you, because there are two narratives constructed: Firstly, with outrage, linking of associations on the basis of zero evidence, calls for continued military action and tightening of domestic security (read: curtailing civil liberties) to […]
07 May
Comments Off on The state: Australian capitalism’s long time companion
> In reading Alex Callinicos’s article ‘The Limits of Passive Revolution’ in Capital & Class, I have found myself diverging off in to some reading about the role of the state in capitalist development in Australia. A common view I encounter is that the period prior to the Great Depression was one of a classic […]
17 Mar
Comments Off on Guy Rundle, the ‘anti-imperialist Left’ and the calls for a no-fly zone in Libya
> Friends no longer It’s important to give Guy Rundle credit for being one of the few mainstream commentators who still has interesting things to say from a genuinely Left perspective. But his intervention in the debate over whether the Australian Left should back calls for a Western-run no-fly zone in Libya — to save […]
22 Feb
Comments Off on The changing face of activism (or not)
Members of the April 6 Movement in Egypt Recent events in the Middle East and North Africa have revealed new and surprising forms of political activism and reinforced long standing ones. The mass uprising in Egypt has sparked a wave of protest across the region as populations held down for decades under oppressive regimes […]
14 Feb
Comments Off on The Egyptian Revolution: only the beginning — where to next?
The most indubitable feature of a revolution is the direct interference of the masses in historical events. — Leon Trotsky, History of the Russian Revolution How good was that? Here we’ll let some Egyptian voices speak: First, a statement on Friday from the Revolutionary Socialists of Egypt: Glory to the martyrs! Victory to the revolution! What is happening today […]
23 Jan
Comments Off on Compulsory voting: More to do with legitimating state rule than democracy
It puzzles me that one can say many outrageously left-wing things on Twitter and barely get a rise but when one raises criticisms of compulsory voting (CV) many left-leaning tweeps get very worked up indeed. Sometimes more worked up than they get about things like the possibility of the Liberals winning in NSW in a […]
16 Jan
Comments Off on The curious marriage of neoliberalism and nationalism
One of the main arguments of the neoliberal era has been centred on the decline of nation states and governments as actors in the economic sphere, replaced by decentralised market networks, multinational corporations and a new class of transnational capitalists. In her article in the Atlantic Monthly that I quoted in my last post, “The Rise of […]
18 Dec
The horrifying deaths of refugees near Christmas Island this week produced two notable responses. The first, recycled endlessly in recent times, was the call for people to not use the tragedy to gain political advantage, a ridiculous idea given that Australia’s current refugee policy has few reasons for existing except in the service of politics. As Left Flank […]
13 Aug
Comments Off on Intended or not, the consequences of riots are not always negative