Issue 18 – 12 November to 18 November 2020

November 19, 2020March 26, 2021 editor

Trumpism will persist until we rekindle faith in people’s ability to reshape the world | Jeff Sparrow
The Guardian
The refusal by Trump’s supporters to accept the 2020 result as genuine didn’t come entirely from nowhere. Indeed, it’s been a long time since partisans of a defeated presidential candidate haven’t denounced the process that allowed their opponent to win.

Sexism, misogyny and workplace rights
Mary Merkenich | Green Left Weekly
The Four Corners program centred around an interview with Rachelle Miller, a former adviser to acting immigration minister Alan Tudge. She described his behaviour as “belittling” and “humiliating”, and said he had failed to support her and others. She and Tudge had an affair in 2017, at a time when he was campaigning against the marriage equality law.

Coal is dead. It’s time for Labor’s denialists to accept it.
Bernard Keane | Crikey
As Labor lays itself bare over coal, the industry itself is dying before our eyes and the biggest companies want out before they’re left with the bill. What do Labor’s denialists know that the world’s biggest energy companies don’t?

Sure, Australia’s inflation rate is low – but the devil is in the detail
Greg Jericho | The Guardian
New data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics has revealed that while the inflation rate has slowed over the past decade, the reason many people haven’t felt an improvement in their cost of living is that prices of non-discretionary, or necessary, items have on average risen nearly 4% more since 2012 than those of discretionary items.

Trump fulfils the age-old prophecy of America’s decline
Guy Rundle | Crikey
In not much more than a fortnight, Donald Trump has achieved what no one else in the US has been capable of since the Civil War.

Philippines typhoon response: Duterte administration ‘unprepared and criminally incompetent’
Laban ng Masa | Green Left Weekly
The scale of the disaster wrought by three successive typhoons still has to be fully grasped but the images of utter desperation of people begging for rescue from rooftops all over Luzon, from Catanduanes to Cagayan, spell the story much better than the numbers. These images are far worse than those fictional scenes conjured in the film Waterworld.

Kettling for COVID: Police and protest in Melbourne
Alison Caddick & Grazyna Zajdow | Arena Online
There’s no love lost between people on the broad Left and those attending, or those we believe to be attending, recent anti-lockdown demonstrations in Melbourne. Associated with right-wing groups spruiking slogans about ‘liberty’—a word and concept never really part of the Australian political lexicon and an import from American movements particularly active at present—these people strike most Melburnians as wrong.

How We Won Back the Right to Protest in NSW
Josh Lees | Red Flag
The New South Wales government has quietly amended its public health restrictions, lifting the ban on protests in the state.

Bolivia’s right wing has been defeated electorally. But it promises to strike again
Robert Narai | Red Flag
Almost a year after being overthrown in a right-wing coup, the Movimiento al Socialismo (Movement Toward Socialism, or MAS) emerged victorious in Bolivia’s presidential elections, held across the country last month.

Spain: A budget for an ecological, feminist and socially just recovery?
Dick Nicholls | Green Left Weekly
The Spanish government of Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE) Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and Unidas Podemos (UP) Second Deputy Prime Minister Pablo Iglesias launched its 2021 draft budget to great fanfare on October 27. The proud parents’ newborn fiscal package will inaugurate “a new epoch that definitively leaves behind the phase of neo-liberalism and cuts to the public sector”

On coal, oil and gas, Australia is becoming more isolated | John Quiggin
John Quiggin | Inside Story
Contrary to Scott Morrison’s blustery claim — “I tell you what, our policies will be set here in Australia” — most of the important decisions about our energy future will be made elsewhere, by governments in Washington, Beijing and Brussels, and by energy companies and financial institutions headquartered in New York, London, Frankfurt and Tokyo.

The Climate Movement Must Be Ready To Challenge Rising Right-Wing Environmentalism
Sam Knights | Jacobin
Right-wing forces have denied the existence of climate change for decades, but we are beginning to see a shift away from crude denial toward a terrifying eco-fascism. We have to oppose any attempt to use the climate crisis to justify racist, reactionary, and authoritarian policies.

$100 billion in unpaid overtime shows working from home comes at a cost
Cait Kelly | New Daily

Linda Burney ‘not convinced’ Ken Wyatt will establish Voice to Parliament Hannah Cross | National Indigenous Times

The Repression of France’s Yellow Vests Has Left Hundreds in Jail — And Crushed Freedom of Protest
Andre Kapsas | Jacobi

JobSeeker changes to plunge 190,000 people into poverty
Josh Butler | The New Daily

News Corp’s new-found belief in science
Rhys Muldoon | Independent Australia

Portland, Maine Voters Delivered a Series of Huge Working-Class Victories on Election Day
Todd Chetrien | Jacobin

The best way to help Australian manufacturing? Stop exporting gas | Richard Denniss
The Guardian

The Commonwealth Integrity Commission comes with limitations
Binoy Kampmark | Independent Australia

Non-consensual reality: Conspiracy thinking, delusions and disputed truth
Mark Furlong | Arena Online

Britain: Corbyn’s suspension and the socialist project
Jonathan Strauss | Green Left Weekly

Population growth and the economy: Challenging the dogma
Hamish Burns | Independent Australia

1% of people cause half of global aviation emissions – study
Damian Carrington | The Guardian