Issue 57 : 12 to 18 August 2021
The Taliban’s return is another step on the track of history. Behind, the cities burn
Guy Rundle | Crikey
It is 10 years, 10 years, since the war was dragged back into the spotlight by Wikileaks “cablegate” releases, and the question posed as to what the hell the war was for. At that point, the war had been going for 10 years.
War Powers: immense profits for arms dealers, incalculable losses for Australians
Tasha May | Michael West Media
“Freedom’s always worth it,” said Scott Morrison. “What a waste,” said the father who had lost his son in Afghanistan. Afghanistan, Iraq, Vietnam. Decades tote up the immense cost of futile wars and the immense profits.
It’s the rich wot get to complain and the poor wot get infected
Ross Gittins | Nine Newspapers
Though some of society’s dividing lines are different in a pandemic, the greatest divide of all is unchanged.
COVID and the normalisation of failure
Guy Rundle | Crikey
The need to make do with the situation we have, improvise, cope, be public-spirited, is concealing the fact that our situation is a product of the federal government’s abject failure. We need to step back and make this clear to ourselves as a first step.
I’m a public hospital nurse in Sydney—the system is at breaking point
A NSW Nurses and Midwives’ Association member | Red Flag
COVID patients are being transported in elevators and corridors that are used by the public—who are not wearing protective N95 masks—with only five or ten minutes between transports to allow for air circulation. This is super dodgy.
Delta variant spreads through aged care facilities in Sydney
Clare Bruderlin | World Socialist Website
Scott Morrison’s COVID game plan is dead simple: Let it rip!
Michael Pascoe | The New Daily
If the Prime Minister and the NSW Premier are being truthful in their announced intentions, it looks like they’re determined to do a Boris – follow the British experiment in letting the virus have its way with the population.
Two months into lockdown, Sydney’s essential workers still face COVID-19 risk at work
Fred Fuentes | Green Left
COVID Is Exposing Australia’s Neoliberalized Health System
Max Chandler-Mather | Jacobin
The IPCC report is a massive alert that the time for climate action is nearly gone, but crucially not gone yet
Greg Jericho | The Guardian
Lest there still be any misunderstanding – whether it be through ignorance or due to listening to those in the media and politics who seek to mislead – the climate right now is warmer than it has been in modern human history.
Extinction Rebellion protesters target National Australia Bank
Kerry Smith | Green Left
“If we care for Country, it will care for us”
Sarah Barns Inside Story
What happens when the idea of Country is integrated into how Australian cities are planned?
A Day in the Death of British Justice
John Pilger | Arena Online
In the upper reaches of the masonry that is the British judiciary there are, I understand, still those who believe in real law and real justice from which the term “British justice” takes its sanctified reputation in the land of the Magna Carta. It now rests on their ermined shoulders whether that history lives on or dies.
Australia Is Enabling State Violence in the Philippines
Patricia Arcilla | Jacobin
Australia has a long history of meddling in the affairs of its Pacific neighbors. In the Philippines, right-wing strongman Rodrigo Duterte’s “war on drugs” amounts to state terror — which Australia’s government has enthusiastically supported through military aid and legal advice.
High Court decision another blow for casual workers
Isaac Nellist | Green Left
The High Court has overturned a decision which said bosses cannot use casual loadings to offset workers’ full entitlements.
The road tunnel emission time bomb
Peter Hehir | Green Left
Defeated management “offer” at Western Sydney University reveals intensifying attack on educators
WSWS Correspondent | World Socialist Website