This years global uprisings remind us how infectious the revolutionary spirit can be. In recent weeks, a social movement within Israel has sprung to life in an almost spontaneous manner.
A small housing protest that started on July 14 has swept hundreds of thousands of people into protest across the country.
As in many other countries, people in Israel face rapidly rising living costs and the privatisation of public assets.
Israel once saw itself as a welfare state (though its policies have been designed to benefit mainly the Jewish population since its inception).
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Inspired by Brisbane flash mob actions in support of the 鈥渂oycott, divestment and sanctions鈥 campaign against Israel, I hunted for songs to adapt and use here in Newcastle.
Luz Smedbron 鈥 a disabled mother of three originally from Ecuador 鈥 and about a dozen housing rights advocates, stood together on Smedbrons' porch in Addison, Illinois on July 29.
With protest signs in hand, they chanted: "The people united, will never be defeated!"
DuPage County sheriffs moved in, but protesters stood their ground.
As news cameras arrived on the scene, the officers slunk back to their patrol cars, looking confused and embarrassed. They radioed for reinforcements.
British inequality growing
鈥淎 detailed and startling analysis of how unequal Britain has become offers a snapshot of an increasingly divided nation where the richest 10% of the population are more than 100 times as wealthy as the poorest 10% of society...
鈥淭he report, An Anatomy of Economic Inequality in the UK, scrutinises the degree to which the country has become more unequal over the past 30 years 鈥
Police snatched four Palestine solidarity activists from their houses in the early hours of August 9. Arrested for allegedly breaching their bail conditions by attending a protest against Israeli apartheid outside a Max Brenner shop on July 29, the activists had to pay outrageously high bail sureties to be released.
We all know there鈥檚 a big problem with the environment and it needs drastic action to fix it. So does a Marxist analysis of the problem bring anything new to the table?
Marxism redefines the terms of the mainstream environmental debate. Instead of seeing the problem as one of humans versus nature, the problem is framed as one where humans and nature are intrinsically linked and ecological crises arise in which the relationship between the two is thrown into imbalance.
For the last five days, Feli McHughes, Joel McHughes and Gregory Coffey from the Ngemba Billabong Restoration Project in Brewarrina, NSW, have been trying to hand over a $260,000 cheque to the head of the Department of Aboriginal Affairs.
Five activists from Anti-Nuclear NT (ANNT) gathered outside the offices of Energy Resources Australia (ERA) on August 9. They were congratulating the company on its decision to abandon plans to use acid heap leeching at its Ranger uranium mine in Kakadu national park.
Acid heap leeching uses thousands of tonnes of highly toxic acid to release uranium oxide from the soil. It would have sent hundreds of acid-filled trucks along the Northern Territory鈥檚 Stuart Highway each day.
About 200 people have arrived on boats to claim refugee protection in Australia since the Australian and Malaysian governments signed a deal to 鈥渟wap鈥 refugees on July 25.
Martin Ferris, Sinn Fein TD (member of the Dublin-based parliament, the Dail) for Kerry, visited Australia at the end of July.
Ferris spoke to hundreds of people at public meetings in Perth, Sydney and Melbourne on the economic crisis in Ireland. He also spoke on the struggle to reunify the six counties in Ireland's north still controlled by Britain with the 26 counties that make up the southern state.
The dilemma facing journalists in Australia today was addressed by Philip Castle, a veteran journalist for more than 30 years and Griffith University academic, at a public forum sponsored by 91自拍论坛 Weekly at the Brisbane Activist Centre on August 9.
The forum, titled 鈥淢urdoch vs Assange: Media corruption versus the truth鈥, also heard from Jim McIlroy, a long-time correspondent for GLW.
When the right-wing press isn鈥檛 hacking the voicemail of murdered teenagers, much of its energy goes to denouncing 鈥済reen extremists鈥. You know, the ones who鈥檇 destroy our economy just to claw back a few tonnes of greenhouse emissions.
So what would Rupert Murdoch, Andrew Bolt and their whole tribe prefer be done, in practice and in the near term, to stop global warming? Let鈥檚 be honest 鈥 nothing.
Cutting emissions, they implicitly argue, will inevitably cost more than if society lets carbon polluters get on with what they do best.
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