Monday, 20 October 2008

New edition of Alliance Voices



Alliance Voices
 Socialist Alliance Discussion Bulletin & National Newsletter
alliancevoices.blogspot.com

Current Issue -- Volume 8, No 1, October 2008 [20081016]
CONFERENCE:Don't miss our 6th National Conference
It is two years since our last conference and Alliance Voices speaks with SA National Coordinator Dick Nichols about the importance of the Socialist Alliance's Sixth National Conference in Geelong -- December 5-7, 2008.
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CONFERENCE:Getting There -- Cheap flights to conference
Directions and maps to the conference venue, plus a review of all your cheap travel options.
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CONFERENCE:Pre-conference discussion - how we're going to do this
How to get the most out of Alliance Voices in the lead-up to the Socialist Alliance National Conference.
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NEWS:New branch of Socialist Alliance forming in Northern Queensland
In time for the national conference the word from Cairns and district is that a new Alliance branch has been formed. Read about all about Socialist Alliance activities in Far North Queensland.
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NEWS:Adelaide climate emergency conference a success
Adelaide branch of the Socialist Alliance helped facilitate a highly succesful Climate Emergnecy Conference with a range of guest speakers.
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NEWS:National trade union work focusing on campaign to abolish the ABCC
Now that the Rudd Labor has won office through the groundswell of opposition to Work Choices, the Socialist Alliance has been focusing on a campaign to abolish the Australian Building and Construction Commisioner (ABCC).
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NEWS:Report on national environment work by the Socialist Alliance
In the wake of the Climate Emergency protests and new figures on the Arctic ice melt, the Socialist Alliance has been focusing its environment work on fostering a national campiagn of protests.
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NEWS:Socialist Alliance Blacktown council campaign advances work with Sudanese socialists
The Socialist Alliance's campaign in ward 3 of the Blacktown City Council in the September NSW local elections was an excellent beginning to collaboration with members of the Communist Party of Sudan and the broader Sudanese community in Sydney.
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NEWS:Socialist Alliance advance in NSW council elections
September's NSW local government elections took place in a context where the state Labor government has been lurching from one crisis to another - notably (but not exclusively) a result of their persistence in pushing for privatisation of electricity against the wishes of 86% of the population.
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NEWS:Media falls in love with Newcastle's youthful team
Newcastle Socialist Alliance sharply increased its vote in the September local government election. Zane Alcorn, Laura Ealing and Tom Cameron won 3.7% in Ward 3, almost tripling our 2004 ward result, (although on that occasion we made the mistake of not running as a group), and Zane scored 2%, which is at least twice our 2004 Lord mayoral result.
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NEWS:Marrickville: notes from the polling booths
Candidate Pip Hinman reported from that the atmosphere between the ALP and Greens at the booth where the Socialist Alliance received around 100 votes, one of the highest, was pretty friendly - unlike in the past.
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NEWS:Western Australia Socialist Alliance election effort
Our election effort on Saturday September 6 was a great success. It was all the greater because we started from such a low base!
When the snap election was announced it was legitimately debatable that we could not even stand a candidate. At the decisive moment Julie Gray stepped forward and we got up and running.
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NEWS:Illawarra branch campaigns for local government democracy and against corruption
The centre of attention for Socialist Alliance Illawarra—as for most political currents in Wollongong—has been the struggle to rewin the right to vote for the town's city council. The previous Labor administration, suspended while the Independent Commission Against Corruption investigated their links with developers, would have been thrown out if it had stood at the September 13 local government elections.
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NEWS:Socialist Alliance NSW conference helps boost left unity
Around 60 people attended the Socialist Alliance NSW conference in Wollongong on August 23. The day was an inspiring success for a number of reasons.
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INTERNATIONAL: Building the mass anti-capitalist party in France
Sam Wainwright reports: The French Revolutionary Communist League (LCR) summer school, which, I recently attended, has attracted around 1200 people. In the 12 years since I lived in France, the LCR has grown from about 900 members to around 3500 today. This is in the context of an ongoing cycle of mass struggle that began with the massive public sector strike in 1995 and continues to this day, feeding into social movements as well as industrial fights.
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CONFERENCE DOCUMENT: Alliance Perspectives
The Socialist Alliance perspectives document, a discussion-starter for our Sixth National Conference, asks what we have achieved, the political terrain on which we are operating, what our priority campaigns should be, and how to best strengthen our organisation.
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DISCUSSION: On the draft perspectives document
A contribution to pre conference discussion from Sara Moss (Gold Coast).
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DISCUSSION: A commentary on Socialist Alliance and the 2007 Federal election
A contributrion to pre conference discussion from from David White (Brisbane).
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Contact the Socialist Alliance
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“End the NT Intervention”: ARC Forum Nov 1

“DEFEND ABORIGINAL COMMUNITIES, FROM ‘THE BLOCK’ TO THE TOP END!”

Aboriginal activists and other speakers take a critical look at Rudd’s Review Panel Report on the on the NT Intervention, the continuation of attacks on welfare and the need to resist racist attacks on Aboriginal Communities in Sydney as well as the NT

2pm – 4pm Saturday 1st November

Redfern Community, Centre Hugo St, Redfern

For more information, ring Greg 0432 050 240 or email aboriginalrightscoalition@gmail.com

The Aboriginal Rights Coalition, Sydney, meets every Monday at 6pm @ the Redfern Community Centre. Please come along and join the campaign for justice.

If you can’t make the meetings, please consider donating to help the ARC cover our costs. Whether it be travel costs for speakers, photocopying, food or venue hire, the ARC is a volunteer organisation, and depends upon your help to continue.

http://aboriginalrightscoalition.wordpress.com/
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Lift the Blockade of Cuba!


Dear friends of Cuba,

Lift the US blockade on Cuba - Urgent appeal for your solidarity

On October 29, the UN General Assembly will once again vote on Cuba’s annual motion calling for the criminal US blockade against it to be lifted. It is likely that the overwhelming majority of the General Assembly will vote with Cuba once again. However, given the Australian government’s prevarication on this vote in recent years, it is crucial that all supporters of Cuba’s right to sovereignty urgently put pressure on the minister of foreign affairs and Australian ambassador to the UN to this year vote in favour Cuba’s motion without amendment.

Please find below a “model” letter (to be modified as you wish) to be sent to the minister, with a copy to the Australia’s ambassador to the UN, urging their support for Cuba’s motion.

Please also forward this letter as widely as possible to others in the next few days with a request that they actively support this emergency campaign – the letters need to be received by the minister by October 24 to be effective.

Thank you for your solidarity.

Lisa Macdonald

************ ********* ********* ********* ********* ********* ********* *********

The Hon. Stephen Smith

Minister for Foreign Affairs

PO Box 6022, House of Representatives, Parliament House
Canberra ACT 2600

Fax: 02 6273 4112

Phone: 02 6277 7500

Email: Stephen.Smith. MP@aph.gov. au

Cc: The Hon. Robert Hill

Australian Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations

150 East 42 Street, Level 33, New York NY 10017, United Nations

Fax: 212 or 646 351 6610

Phone: 212 or 1-646 351 6600

Dear Minister,

We are writing to urge you, as a representative of the Australian people, to ensure that Australia votes in support of the government of Cuba’s motion to the United Nations General Assembly on October 29 calling for the United States government to lift its 46-year-long economic blockade on Cuba.

The lifting of the US blockade is, this year, more urgent than ever following the devastation of Cuba last month by hurricanes Gustav and Ike. While Cuba’s remarkable achievements in social development meant that very few lives were lost as a result of those natural disasters, the US blockade – by preventing Cuba from buying most construction and other supplies directly from the US - is a huge obstacle to this tiny country’s ability to recover from the hurricanes. On humanitarian grounds alone, we believe it is incumbent on Australia to do all it can to end this unjust blockade.

As in every previous vote on Cuba’s motion to the UN, it is likely that the overwhelming majority of General Assembly members will once again recognise that the US blockade is a flagrant violation of the Cuban people’s right to decide their own government and future, and support the motion. We urge the Australian government to do likewise, and to refrain from sponsoring, as it did in 2006, an amendment to Cuba’s motion that sought to interfere in Cuba’s sovereign affairs.

As a nation that values democracy, Australia has a responsibility to advocate and uphold in forums such as the UN the right of all nations to self-determination, just as we expect our national sovereignty to be respected. To sacrifice such democratic principles to an economic and foreign policy alliance with the United States shames Australia in the eyes of the rest of world.

We urge you to take a principled stand on behalf of the Australian people and ensure that Australia votes in favour of Cuba’s just motion in the UN.

Yours sincerely,

[Name and contact details of individual or organisation]
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Sunday, 19 October 2008

France: For a left that stops making excuses

18 October 2008

Hand in hand with the struggles of French workers and students has been the massive growth in popularity of postal worker and Revolutionary Communist League (LCR) spokesperson Olivier Besancenot.
Recent opinion polls listed “The Postie”, as even the capitalist media call him, as the second most credible opposition politician to the right-wing government of President Nicolas Sarkozy. Besancenot was voted second after the Socialist Party (PS) mayor of Paris and ahead of the parliamentary leaders of the official PS “opposition”.

Below is an excerpt of Besancenot’s speech to an August open air rally of 3500 members and supporters of the New Anti-capitalist Party (NAP), initiated by the LCR, on the challenges for the project.

* * *

It’s in these times of economic crisis that we will have to show just how useful we really are.

We must, in the year ahead, continue to show that we are the most effective opponents of the Sarkozy government and the policies of the French Confederation of Business Enterprises.

We have been trying to show, step by step, that there is a credible alternative: an alternative in the form of a new party worthy of the name — a left that doesn’t apologise for being left, for being anti-capitalist, for wanting to transform society.

In short, a left that is as faithful to the interests of its own sectors — the exploited and oppressed — as the right is faithful to the interests of their side, the exploiters and privileged.

I know that we are asked to do as activists things that would be a big job for a multinational corporation, when we currently only have the resources of a small business! So what, it’s just what we’ll have to do.

And that means in their workplaces and working class suburbs, people will be able to depend on us. It means that those who fight against racism, fascism, sexism and homophobia know that they can count on us.

Immigrants and undocumented workers must know that they can count on a left that from now on will support them all the way to victory: permanent residency for all undocumented immigrants, closure of the detention centres, full citizenship rights and the freedom to move and live where they like.

The PS tries to tell the majority of people that the only way to escape Sarkozy is to wait … for a hypothetical and uncertain escape thanks to the next presidential election in
2012.

To depend on the uncertain prospect of the umpteenth change of government, in which the only thing that can really be guaranteed is that absolutely nothing in our daily lives will change at all.

Well, we’re part of the left that says, “We’re not going to wait until 2012 to resist, to fight and to try to stop the policies of the Sarkozy government”.

Because it’s a social crisis, for millions of people.

To those that ask, “With your New Anti-capitalist Party, what do you want to achieve?”, I suggest you respond to them in the manner a minister in the government of Bolivian President Evo Morales responded when I met him in Paris with two other comrades.

He said to us, “Deep down, what we want is not to live better, because to live better always means at the expense of others. What we want is to not simply survive, because that’s already a given.

“What we want, is to simply live well.”

We want the same thing! To live well! And living well means the right to existence takes a priority over profits. Living well means having time for yourself — for those close to you — those around you, for creating, for having access to knowledge, for travel.

Living well also means living in harmony with our environment, putting an end to all their crocodile tears and taking the steps that are necessary.

Because if we really want to be ecological, then we must start with the evidence of what has been proven not to work: the existing model of economic development in which capitalism, each time touches any part of the ecological fabric, treats it solely as a piece of merchandise and destroys it.

We arrive systematically each time at the same conclusion: we simply have to have a new model of economic and social development. We call it “Socialism of the 21st century”.

There are those that call it “eco-socialism”, “libertarian self-management” or “communism with a human face”.

Who cares what we call it! It’s a process of a deep-going transformation that we want to take on. But I’ve said enough already… Stop talking about it and let’s do it, together!

From: International News, Green Left Weekly issue #771 22 October 2008.
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Die Linke presidential candidate calls Germany undemocratic

Germany's left-wing party Die Linke, presidential candidate, 72-year-old Peter Sodann, a former TV cop, criticised Germany's "democratic credentials" in an interview with the regional paper Sächsische Zeitung. On Thursday, Sodann said he didn’t like “our current way of life. I don’t think what we have is a democracy.”

Sodann has had his experiences with undemocratic behaviour - a former citizen of East Germany, he had his run-ins with the Stasi. Erosion of democratic, civil and workers' rights, for example. However, the Stasi didn't invade Afghanistan against the will of the German (and Afghani) people, nor did they take billions of dollars of taxpayers money and give it to the real masters of government - the capitalist class and the bankers.

According to news source The Local: "Sodann, who played a police commissioner on the popular TV series Tatort also said he would like to arrest Deutsche Bank CEO Josef Ackermann. “Then they’d toss me out, but at least I’d have done it,” he told the paper."

The position of president in Germany is mostly symbolic and ceremonial, and is elected by the "Federal Convention", which is made up of members of the Bundestag and delegates from state legislatures, rather than by any kind of popular election, so Sodann has little chance of winning in a country where every other party hates Die Linke more than each other, and the media spends its time trying to find ways of slandering Die Linke and linking them with the Stasi.

Possibly the most useful thing Sodann has suggested so far is ditching the atrocious German national anthem, and replacing it with something a bit more suitable: Bertolt Brecht’s Kinderhymne.


Kinderhymne Bert Brecht

Anmut sparet nicht noch Mühe
Leidenschaft nicht noch Verstand
Daß ein gutes Deutschland blühe
Wie ein andres gutes Land.

Daß die Völker nicht erbleichen
Wie vor einer Räuberin
Sondern ihre Hände reichen
Uns wie andern Völkern hin.

Und nicht über und nicht unter
Andern Völkern wolln wir sein
Von der See bis zu den Alpen
Von der Oder bis zum Rhein.

Und weil wir dies Land verbessern
Lieben und beschirmen wir's.
Und das liebste mag's uns scheinen
So wie andern Völkern ihrs.


Children's Hymn

Spare no grace or pains of yours
Spare no passion or insight
So that a good Germany flowers
Like many another good country.

So that the peoples do not turn pale
Before us as before a bird of prey—
But that they reach out their hands
To us as to other peoples.

And so that we desire to be
not above, and not below other peoples,
From the ocean to the Alps,
from the Oder to the Rhein.

And because we are tending to this land,
May we love and protect it;
And may it seem to us the dearest,
Just as to others their own land seems.

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Friday, 17 October 2008

250 Sacked at Victoria University

NTEU Media Release: VU Vice-Chancellor Should Be The First To Go!

17 October 2008

The National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) today called for the Vice Chancellor of Victoria University to resign. The Union was responding angrily to an announcement by Victoria University of a plan to sack more than 250 staff.

“This announcement is outrageous, and puts the University’s future at risk” Matthew McGowan, NTEU Victorian Division Secretary, said today. “If there are to be job cuts, Liz Harman should be in front of the line.”

“Given the size of the University, this is the largest redundancy announcement in Australian university history. The University management must be held to account for this disaster. Both the state and federal governments must intervene to protect the future of education in the western region of Melbourne.”

The Vice Chancellor’s announcement to staff today stated that the reason for slashing staff is to provide “…the means to invest in new facilities, infrastructure, and services to meet the growth demands of the western region of Melbourne.”

Mr McGowan went on to say, “It is not buildings that teach students, it is people. This announcement puts the future education of students in the Western region at risk for a capital program to be delivered at some stage in the future, while we are about 3-6 months away from new government funding announcements.”

“It is just not good enough.”

A survey of Victorian University staff conducted by the NTEU in November 2007 found Victoria University management has one of the lowest levels of support of staff compared to other university managements in the state.

The NTEU will call meetings of staff for early next week to consider the responses of the Union to the announcement.

For further information: Matthew McGowan, NTEU Vic Division Secretary 0417 054 110

Media enquiries: Michael Evans, NTEU National Organiser 0418 241 664

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Marx is back on the best-sellers list!


  • Booklovers turn to Karl Marx as financial crisis bites in Germany

Kate Connolly in Berlin, The Guardian, October 15, 2008

Karl Marx is back. That, at least, is the verdict of publishers and bookshops in Germany who say that his works are flying off the shelves.

The rise in his popularity has of course, been put down to the current economic crisis. "Marx is in fashion again," said Jörn Schütrumpf, manager of the Berlin publishing house Karl- Dietz which publishes the works of Marx and Engels in German. "We're seeing a very distinct increase in demand for his books, a demand which we expect to rise even more steeply before the year's end."

Most popular is the first volume of his signature work, Das Kapital. According to Schütrumpf, readers are typically "those of a young academic generation, who have come to recognise that the neoliberal promises of happiness have not proved to be true."

Bookshops around the country are reporting similar findings, saying that sales are up by 300%. (Though the fact that they are not prepared to quote actual figures suggests the sales were never that high).

Literature comes and goes and it is nice to see that trends are not always driven by slick marketing campaigns. Just as Rudyard Kipling would have been delighted that his poem The Gods of the Copybook Headings which contains the apt lines: "Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew." is modish once more, so Marx would have reveled in the idea that an economic crisis had reignited interest in his works. (Not, you understand, because of the increased royalties that would be coming his way over the next few months were he still alive.)

Increasing numbers of Germans appear ready to out themselves as Marx fans in a time when it is fashionable to repeat the philosopher's belief that excessive capitalism with all its greed finally ends up destroying itself. When Oskar Lafontaine, the head of Germany's rising left-wing party Die Linke, said he would include Marxist theory in the party's manifesto, in the outline of his plans to partially nationalise the nation's finance and energy sectors, he was labeled as a "mad leftie" who had "lost the plot" by the tabloid Bild. But even Germany's finance minister, Peer Steinbrück, who must have had some sleepless nights over the past few weeks, has now declared himself something of a fan. "Generally one has to admit that certain parts of Marx's theory are really not so bad," he cautiously told Der Spiegel.

"These days Marx is on a winning streak in the charm stakes," Ralf Dorschel commented in the Hamburger Abendblatt.

But for those not quite ready to immerse themselves in Marxist theory, Marx's correspondence to Friedrich Engels at the time of an earlier US economic crisis makes more entertaining reading. "The American Crash is a delight to behold and it's far from over," he wrote in 1857, confidently predicting the imminent and complete collapse of Wall Street.

And reuters has caught hold of the news too....
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