No Good Men Among the Living: America, the Taliban and the War Through Afghan Eyes
By Anand Gopal
Metropolitan books, 2014
304 pp, $27
Anand Gopal's book should be compulsory reading for every federal politician in Australia. Nobody could finish it and still have a shred of belief in US foreign policy.
What comes through this history is that it is very dangerous to be an enemy of the US. However, it is just as dangerous to be an ally.
1044
Every activist has at some point been told that activism is pointless today, that it achieves nothing and hasn鈥檛 since the 鈥70s. Others say that there鈥檚 no point to feminist activism in particular because we already have gender equality.
Citizenfour won the Oscar for best documentary on February 22, an award that its director Laura Poitras and journalist Glenn Greenwald collected, later joined on stage by Edward Snowden's partner Lindsay Mills.
鈥淭he disclosures of Edward Snowden don鈥檛 only expose a threat to our privacy but to our democracy itself,鈥 said Poitras when receiving the Oscar.
鈥淲hen the decisions that rule us are taken in secret we lose the power to control and govern ourselves.鈥
The Irish coalition government of Fine Gael and the Labour Party tried to turn the tables on its left-wing opponents in recent days, with efforts to portray them as 鈥渄angerous鈥 and 鈥渁nti-democratic鈥.
The exchanges came amid ongoing demonstrations over the jailing of anti-austerity protestors in Dublin. Five activists were ordered to be locked up by a court last month for failing to stay away from the installation of water metres.
When Prime Minister Tony Abbott used a March 3 press conference at Parliament House to announce the deployment of 300 more soldiers to Iraq, it was impossible to ignore the political theatre to serve a partisan domestic agenda.
If you missed it in the content of his talk, you couldn't miss the no-less-than eight flags propped up behind him as he spoke.
A combination of relentless attacks on the living standards of ordinary people and Abbott's incompetence has made his government one of the most unpopular in Australian history.
Thousands of people rallied around the country on March 4 to protest against the federal government鈥檚 anti-worker laws.
Organised by the Australian Council of Trade Unions, the rallies protested against a range of government policies including cuts to wages and conditions, the deregulation of university fees, cuts to the ABC, and slashing unemployment benefits.
About 30 people gathered in the Latin American Plaza, near Sydney鈥檚 Central Station on March 5 for a vigil to mark the second anniversary of the death of Venezuelan revolutionary leader Hugo Chavez.
In August last year, Prime Minister Tony Abbott thought it would be a good idea to send 1000 Australian soldiers to Ukraine. Their intended purpose was to guard the crash site of the Malaysian Airlines plane that was shot down there killing 38 Australian citizens.
The proposal was quietly dropped after military planners advised that, as none of the troops could speak either Ukrainian or Russian, and would not be able to tell the difference between the militias of either country, it was not such a great idea after all.
In February the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) reduced the cash rate to 2.25%, a rate it then maintained at its March meeting. While there has been a great deal of commentary on this in the mainstream press, especially in the Australian Financial Review, the left press (for lack of a better term) has been stunningly silent.
GREEK ELECTIONS REPORT BACK
GLW correspondent Dick Nichols reported from Athens during the Greek elections and will speak on SYRIZA and the fight against austerity.
Cairns: Saturday March 14, 2pm, Yungaburra Pub. Phone Jonathan 0437 790 306.
Perth: Wednesday March 18, 12.30pm Hosted by Murdoch University Resistance club. Murdoch University. Phone Gavin 0451 919 680.
Perth: Thursday March 19, 6pm, Perth Activist Centre, 15/509 Aberdeen St. $6/$4 conc. Phone 9218 9608 or email perth@socialist-alliance.org.
released this statement on March 6.
***
Stop CSG Sydney has welcomed the news that the NSW government has decided to cancel the coal seam gas licence covering most of metropolitan Sydney, known as Petroleum Exploration Licence 463. Now the water catchments need to be protected from CSG mining.
The various agencies of Australian governments have a capacity to access data generated by individuals that is unprecedented 鈥 one of the 鈥渂enefits鈥 of the communications revolution that we are living through.
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