If you have just begun studying, welcome to university. If you鈥檝e been looking through the pamphlets and advertising material for your campus of choice, you鈥檝e probably been led to believe that university largely revolves around sitting on lawns on nice days laughing with attractive young people.
If you鈥檝e been watching too many American films, you might be expecting wild parties and crazy weekends. Or if you鈥檙e academically minded, you might just be expecting to broaden your horizons with new and exotic ideas.
Ben Peterson
Occupy began as a movement against the effects and causes of the global economic crisis and against the austerity measures pushed by governments for the benefit of the 1%. In Australia, many people were inspired by Occupy Wall Street in New York and the global movement it had sparked.
When an international call for action on October 15 came out, we responded, and began our own occupations here.
According to Australia鈥檚 outgoing discrimination commissioner Graeme Innes, racism is still a big problem in Australian society.
This is nothing new. Racism has been an issue in Australia since the very beginning of white colonisation, when Aboriginal people were forced from their lands to make way for the new colonial Australia.
But racism, like our society, has changed with the times. This throws up new challenges in tackling it.
The ALP is the party for ordinary Australians, right?
Resistance members will often talk about the importance of political movements being independent of political parties, but what does this mean for the ALP?
Isn鈥檛 the ALP Australia鈥檚 party of progress? And surely they are better then the Tories? Isn鈥檛 it our party?
Well, it is a party that鈥檚 designed for progressives, unionists and activists, but that doesn鈥檛 mean that it's ours. If you look at its history, the ALP has attracted progressive people but rarely helped create change.
I was as worried as anyone when I wandered down to my local pub to find a poster over the door announcing the government was trying to shut it down.
In their national campaign against proposed changes to poker machine use, Clubs Australia and the Australian Hotel Association (AHA) say 鈥渟ome bloke in Tasmania鈥 (Independent MP Andrew Wilkie) is trying to push through laws that will bankrupt our pubs, destroy our communities and put us all under more government surveillance.
Picture this: you drive past armed guards at the gate; then park your car next to a four-metre-high fence topped with electric wire.
As you enter the building you鈥檙e searched, your phone is confiscated, your details are noted, then you pass through metal detectors and are tagged with ultraviolet pens.
Once inside you find small children playing, and their families and friends, who have broken no laws. Surveillance cameras are ever-present and guards patrol the grounds.
Acting Nepali Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal has argued that bullets, explosives and other munitions no longer constitute 鈥渓ethal military hardware鈥 as long as they are to be used for 鈥渢raining and other related works鈥.
MK Nepal was seeking to justify the decision to allow India to resume arms supplies to Nepal. He has never been elected and came to power after the Maoist-led government was brought down by a soft military coup in 2009.
Paying rent sucks. That's nothing new. Its not really profound or controversial to say that 鈥 hardly a purely socialist slogan. All of us would like a bit more dosh, and to hand over hard earned cash just for a shitty flat isn鈥檛 something anyone enjoys. But these days it鈥檚 much more than that 鈥 paying rent is hard, and getting harder.
The sixth plenum of the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist 鈥 UCPN(M)) began on November 20 in Gorka District. It was the largest meeting in the party鈥檚 history; more then 7000 local members are taking part in discussions.
The Nepalese revolution is in a state of limbo. The current government resigned in May, but continues in a caretaker fashion, as no alternative has come forward.
Western Australia鈥檚 proposed 鈥渟top-and-search鈥 laws look dead in the water after the National Party opposed the bill on November 11.
The proposed laws were to expand WA police powers to search people without having to provide grounds for suspicion. The laws would also allow the police minister to declare areas in which police had the power to arbitrarily stop and search people.
The Anti-Porn Men Project was recently launched. Anti-Porn Men is a website providing men with information and a platform to explore anti-pornography views and arguments.
Criticisms of porn from moralistic and religious standpoints are nothing new, but the Anti-Porn Men Project isn鈥檛 about moralistic preaching 鈥 it comes from a feminist and pro-sex perspective.
搁别蝉颈蝉迟补苍肠别鈥檚 Ben Peterson spoke to Mitch Cherry, a member of the Geelong Resistance branch and the Socialist Alliance candidate for Bellarine in the November 27 Victorian state election.
Why are you running in the election? What does it mean to be a youth candidate?
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