Issue 17 – 4 November to 11 November 2020
More jobs for Australian teenagers is good news for them but not recovery
Greg Jericho | The Guardian
The latest jobs figures show that Victoria in October remained, unsurprisingly, mired in job losses. But the more sobering and perhaps surprising news is that the rest of the nation was not improving at all
Why the military establishment backed Biden
Chloe Rafferty | Red Flag
Why was Biden the war criminals’ candidate of choice? The foreign policy chaos and controversy of the Trump years were a symptom of a global superpower in relative decline, with no real strategy out of the quagmire.
US election: whatever happens, progressives and democracy lose
Guy Rundle | Crikey
The right’s attempt to derail the US election is the final manifestation of the Donald Trump era. And there’s little the left can do
After the virus: How to design a post-capitalist world
Yanis Varoufakis | The Saturday Paper
When even the bankers of the ultra-rich, along with the bailiffs working diligently on their behalf, are panicking about excessive inequality, it becomes hard to say our world is morally defensible.
‘This is war’: fighting for abortion rights in Poland
Jasmine Duff | Red Flag
A mass movement in Poland has succeeded in delaying the implementation of a court decision that would ban nearly every abortion.
Australian idle
Russell Marks | The Monthly
Fifty years after ‘A New Britannia’, whatever happened to the revolution?
Pandemic pivot: work and play will be changed forever
Ross Gittins | Nine
When the pandemic has become just a bad memory, we’ll see it has left big changes in the way the macro economy is managed and the way we work and spend. Whether that leaves us better or worse off we’ve yet to discover.
United States: The election result and its meaning
Malik Miah & Barry Sheppard | Green Left Weekly
Trumpism — white supremacy coupled with a drive toward authoritarianism, with a mass base — will not disappear, whatever happens to Trump as an individual.
After Donald Trump: why a smarter demagogue might find a way to win
Bernard Keane | Crikey
For right-wingers unwilling to embrace conspiracy theories and promote the narrative that Trump was robbed, there’s much solace-seeking in the narrative that Trump is some sort of political genius who tapped something “liberal elites” don’t understand.
How Real Estate Agents Keep Cities Segregated
Max Besbris | Jacobin
Under capitalism, housing is a commodity, which means it principally exists to make rich people richer rather than meet human needs. That gap between making money and making profit distorts a whole range of life outcomes for average people — and real estate agents play a critical role in that process.
For Djab Wurrung trees and country
Melinda Hinkson | Arena Online
In late October, as Melbournians were celebrating liberation from three months of pandemic lockdown, the Victorian government authorised contractors to move in and cut down a large fiddleback tree on Djab Wurrung country near Buangor, south of Ararat.
The divided citizen: Robo-debt was just the beginning
David Lloyd Brown | Arena Online
What does a citizen look like in the eyes of the state when she is constructed from multiple databases and how does she respond to the resultant kaleidoscopic rendition of her?
Four socialists elected to Melbourne councils
Jacob Andrewartha | Green Left Weekly
Scientists say net zero by 2050 is inadequate
Pip Hinman | Green Left Weekly
The importance of regulating disinformation and ‘fake news’
Paul Budde | Independent Australia
Overwhelming support for independent First Nations body to investigate deaths in custody
Rachael Knowles | National Indigenous Times
Nigeria and the hope of the #EndSARS protests
Shawn Hattingh | Green Left Weekly
A Modern Accumulation?
Luis F. Angosto-Ferrández | Progress in Political Economy
Time to end Australia’s American dependency
Adam Triggs | Inside Story
Follow the money: Business figures using ASIC strife to undermine banking reforms
Helen Bird | Inside Story
With Joel Fitzgibbon gone, the ALP must stop appeasing the fossil fuel lobby James Clark | Jacobin
Trump may be gone but in Morrison, he lives
Jennifer Wilson | Independent Australia
Centre of Non-Excellence: how to win grants and influence people … in Australia’s universities
Luke Stacey | Michael West Media
Between a sex shop and a crematorium: how it all ended for Donald Trump
Guy Rundle | Crikey
Going Going, Gonski: public schools finally abandoned for the elite
Trevor Cobbold | Michael West Media