Waltzing at the Doomsday Ball: The Best of Joe Bageant
By Joe Bageant
Scribe Publications, 2011
$32.95, 298 pp.
Joe Bageant was a feature on many United States left-wing websites, such as Counterpunch, over the years. His writing is witty, outrageous and with a penetratingly cynical view of working-class American life.
Bageant, who died last year, came from a depressed, working-class community in Winchester, Virginia, and never lost his love/hate relationship with the people he knew so well there.
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activist Gail Malone gave the speech below at a July 16 rally in Sydney.
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WikiLeaks is a gift to history. We now have, for the first time, the ability to write history not only through the eyes of the victors. WikiLeaks has become a leveler between people and government. They have ushered in an age where we, the people, have access to information once deemed for their eyes only.
Human rights lawyer and activist gave the speech below at a July 16 rally in Sydney organised by .
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I’d like to thank those involved in coordinating today’s event, and for the invitation to speak.
Striking Coles warehouse workers in Somerton, Melbourne, held a community rally at their picket line on July 15.
Protesters at the Lizard's Revenge anti-nuclear protest camp near Roxby Downs, South Australia, marched to what they dubbed the "gates of hell" — the entrance to BHP’s giant Olympic Dam mine — on July 15.
Over the weekend of July 14-15, communities in 30 locations around Malaysia participated in a National Day of Stop Lynas action against a rare earth refinery project being built in Malaysia by the Australian company Lynas.
One aspect of the drive by the super rich to make working people bear the brunt of the new Depression is to attack the social wage.
Part of this attack is the serious erosion of public education. This predates the crisis that began in 2007, but the recession that followed has been met with a sharp increase in such attacks.
The failure of the federal government to adequately fund public education cascades down to the states and cities, who all cry there is not enough money, so cutbacks are necessary.
Since the outbreak of a new protest wave on June 16 that has spread across Sudan, the National Congress Party (NCP) regime has conducted mass arrests of thousands of activists in a desperate attempt to quell the revolt.
Quebec's long-running student strike is set to resume at the start of the new semester on August 17. Students from universities and colleges are seeking to force the government to stop its plan to raise fees.
The student movement has turned politics in Quebec on its head, challenging not only the fee hike but the status quo of neoliberal politics. It has called into question the existence of fees and raised the idea of free education as a right.
Reading this former Reuters reporter's analysis of the news industry is like watching an episode of detective series Columbo unfold. Like the seemingly innocent inspector Columbo, Patrick Chalmers at first comes across as disconcertingly naive.
The article below is based on a talk given at a meeting on June 26 in Melbourne by Chris Slee, a member of the SA Melbourne branch.
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The Socialist Alliance supports the right of the Tamil people to self-determination.
A resolution adopted at an SA national conference reads: "Socialist Alliance recognises that Tamils are an oppressed nation within Sri Lanka, and supports their right to self-determination.
French car-maker Peugeot-Citroen announced a drastic cost-cutting plan on July 12 to slash 8000 jobs in France and close a major factory in Aulnay-sous-Bois north of Paris.
Hundreds of workers at the Aulnay plant walked off the job and staged a protest in front of the site, which is one of France's biggest car factories and a bastion of car workers' trade unions.
"It's a show of disgust because Peugeot has played with us for a year, over a year now, saying that it's not certain, we're not going to close," said Khenniche of the SUD union, who has worked at the plant for 17 years.
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