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Iraq and the Australian anti-war movement
This post was originally published at Overland Journal. *** This is the speech I gave on Monday this week, at the forum ‘IRAQ 10 years on: Remembering when the world said NO to war’ — organised by the Sydney Stop the War Coalition. Soon after the fall of the Berlin...
Leo Panitch’s critque of the state
These are some early thoughts on Leo Panitch's work on the nature of the state, who I see as the best contemporary proponent of aspects of the work of Poulantzas and Miliband. There is further work to do on the critique of the concept of 'relative autonomy', but also...
Unfree Labour in a Capitalist Mode of Production?
This month I guest edited, with Jonathon Collerson, an issue of the Journal of Australian Political Economy (JAPE) on new research in Marxist political economy. It arose, in part, from a conference Jonathon and I organised in 2011 titles 'Capital Against Capitalism'....
2012: A lesson in how to blame the victim
This post was originally published at Overland Journal. *** For the last post of 2012 we were asked to reflect on politics over the last year. In thinking on this for the last week I’ve drafted about ten first paragraphs. The writer’s block arises not from nothing to...
Children, women, men: The ALP’s conscious cruelty
This blog post first appeared at Overland Journal. *** Govt confirms they have sent women and children refugees overnight to the detention camps in Manus Island indefinitely. Shameful. – Senator Sarah-Hanson Young on Twitter, 21 November 2012 In...
‘He Kills Me’: ACT UP and the AIDS crisis
This post was originally published at Left Flank. *** At this time of World Aids Day, I wanted to take the opportunity to celebrate the success and wonder that was ACT UP (in particular the NYC chapter). ACT UP turned 25 in March this year, and has long been a core...
Still stuck in the 1980s? The Unions and the Accord
This blog post first appeared at Overland Journal. *** On 16 May 2012 there was a reunion at the Australian Council of Trade Unions congress gala dinner. The crucial players involved in the development of the ACTU and ALP Prices and Incomes Accord of the 1980s –...
Neoliberals on bikes
This post was first published at Overland Journal. *** [M]yth has the task of giving an historical intention a natural justification, and making contingency appear eternal – Roland Barthes One of the founders of the German Greens, Jutta Ditfurth, left her party in the...