Despite a burst of publicity at its first appearance, Reclaim Australia (RA) has been eclipsed by the certifiable fascists of the United Patriots Front (UPF). The UPF announced themselves in May last year, when they attempted to march on Richmond Town Hall, but they got a hiding. They have had similar experiences on repeated occasions in Melbourne, either being blocked by anti-fascists or cowering behind masses of cops. Their mobilizations in Bendigo, however, have been far more successful, each time outnumbering the anti-fascists who came out to counter them.
This hasn’t been all. Alarmingly, on 1 November the UPF visited the Melbourne Anarchist Club and radio station 3CR, in unspoken but clear acts of intimidation. Then, on 26 June... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) Across South America, the class struggle is raging at an intensity that Australia has rarely seen. Both Right and Left are on the offensive in different countries and it is the political center which is falling away.
Bolivia has just experienced a military coup with clear participation of Fascists and with at least a degree of orchestration from within the United States. The coup regime has issued an arrest warrant for former President Evo Morales, under the pretext of terrorism and sedition, but transparently for the real reason of being Evo Morales. In Brazil, the Fascist Jair Bolsonaro was elected by technically democratic means, but is engaged in murderous repression and is attacking the institutions of capitalist democracy from within... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) The Melbourne Anarchist Communist Group supports a YES vote in the postal survey on marriage equality now in progress in Australia. We do this, not because we endorse the institution of marriage, but because the survey will have concrete results and we need to choose which results we favor.
Marriage is a reactionary social institution which exists so that men can ensure that their property will be inherited by children who are unquestionably their own offspring. Historically, it was also a means for negotiating alliances between families to advance their interests. The wishes and interests of women were of little account in the process. Marriage has thus been part of the subordination of women to men within class society. With the rise of ... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) Bosses’ charter
The revelations from the secret research at the Office of the Employment Advocate have proven what we knew would happen with Work Choices is already happening. Conditions are being lost wholesale through AWAs and bosses are using them to divide us among ourselves. In other news, wages are stagnating despite the tightest labor market in a generation and union membership is still declining. The union officials have no answer to the Howard Government’s legislation, even though it threatens to put them out of a job. And this is before the election – many bosses are holding back till after it and after current agreements expire.
The ALP won’t save us
A “Labor” government will be no savio... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) The late, unlamented Howard Government’s «intervention» into Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory was a blatant land grab, but it was also much more than that. It was a deliberate attempt to extinguish Aboriginal culture and forcibly assinmilate Aboriginal people into White Australia. And the new Labor Government has not yet disavowed it.
The Process is the policy
In media discussion of the NT «intervention», much has been made of how certain aspects cut across the ostensible justification for it. The lack of consultation with Aboriginal communities about details of the «intervention» has resulted in needless violation of Aboriginal law, the removal of the permit system has opened Ab... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) On 20 September this year, there was a co-ordinated series of demonstrations around the world held under the umbrella of “School Strike for Climate”. At least 6 million people participated, with protests across 4,500 locations in 150 countries. It was followed the next week by another 2 million people protesting in 2,400 locations. In Australia, protests were attended by about 300,000 people – amounting to over 1% of the population.
These protests mark a watershed in global politics around climate change. In key countries, including Australia, huge numbers of people are angry about the impending climate disaster and willing to do something about it. Capitalist governments, however, are taking inadequate action and some ar... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) The dust has settled on the latest Israeli attack on Gaza, but the fundamental position remains. Israel continues its slow process of ethnic cleansing in Jerusalem and on the West Bank, while failing to demolish the military capacity of Hamas in Gaza. And yet, the situation is not stable.
Protests in Jerusalem and on the West Bank exploded on 6 May, when Israeli authorities moved to enforce evictions of Palestinians from the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in East Jerusalem. Israeli law allows Jews who fled during the war over the establishment of Israel to reclaim their property, but prevents Palestinians from doing the same. The double standard in Israeli law is deliberate. It’s what being a “Jewish State” is all about.
The... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) We anarchist communists know that capitalism is a socio-economic system over-producing products for a wealthy minority. Capitalism breeds destructive competition between private owners of production. An exploited workforce makes goods for private companies which are sold in pursuit of profit and perpetual growth.
The driving force of capitalism is profit. Companies produce goods to make profit, not to meet the needs of people. Under capitalism, profit comes before efficiency and sustainability. The State and government, on behalf of capitalists, is also responsible for today’s extensive environmental destruction. Governments do not protect the environment if doing so will reduce company profits.
Various environmental movements, grou... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) No choices
Howard’s anti-worker laws are appalling, and everyone knows it. The barefaced lies about “choice” are contradicted by the horror stories of people being sacked and offered their job back with a massive pay cut, of workers losing “protected” conditions at the stroke of a pen, of bosses demanding draconian AWAs as the price of having a job at all. This is capitalism, here, today.
The bosses won’t hold off forever
If big business hasn’t yet used the laws against most workers, it’s not because they’re are nice guys. It’s because they’re afraid. They’re worried we might fight back and they’re worried about the electoral fallout. This situation, though... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) The National Plan to Transition Australia’s National COVID-19 Response is a plan for disaster. The Federal Government, at the behest of the most powerful capitalists in Australia, is planning to give up the fight to eliminate COVID19 and even to re-introduce it into areas of Australia that are now free. It airily dismisses concerns by referring to the research of the respected Doherty Institute.
The National Plan is a single sheet of paper that sets out a four step process. We’re no experts, but most points in Phases A and B appear to be a bureaucratic expression of the current framework. The really dangerous part is the final “Post-Vaccination” Phase D, where the proposal is to abandon all internal social distancin... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) It is important to call the events of Tuesday 6 January in Washington DC in the US by their proper name. It was an attempted Fascist putsch, consciously incited though not directed by Donald Trump. It was an attempt to prevent the US Congress taking the final step to authorize the inauguration of Joe Biden as President a fortnight later. It failed and we’re glad it did.
Capitalist media organizations are notoriously unreliable at estimating numbers at political events, but it’s clear that at least tens of thousands of Trump supporters attended a demonstration in Washington under Fascist leadership. Up to a couple of thousand people, including organized Fascist groups and known Fascist identities, stormed the Capitol building (t... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) 1915
On this day, 103 years ago, Australian, New Zealand and other troops of the British Empire stormed a Turkish beach in a poorly conceived and poorly executed plan to secure a passage through the Dardanelles for the navy of the Czar of Russia. It was a sideshow in the greater crime of the war itself, where two rival imperialist alliances fought to redivide the colonies, markets and resources of the world. The war was ended by revolution, first in Russia in 1917 and then in Germany the following year. Victories for the Entente on the Western Front, while significant, were a result of the social disintegration of the Central Powers rather than being decisive factors themselves.
Today
War in politics pursued via other means. Politics... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) Defend Kobanê!
The siege of Kobanê continues, with the murderous cutthroats of Da’esh (a.k.a. ISIS) not relenting in their attempts to crush all resistance to their vicious and reactionary movement. The heroic women and men of the YPG-YPJ forces are putting up an implacable defense, despite being outnumbered and outgunned by Da’esh. The United States imperialists have supplied small quantities of weapons to Kobanê (even if some of them have fallen into the hands of Da’esh!) and have staged some airstrikes on Da’esh positions. Meanwhile, the increasingly authoritarian regime of Recep Erdoğan in Turkey shows which side he is on by keeping the border sealed against assistance and reinforcements... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) Dear Comrades,
The Melbourne Anarchist Communist Group sends its revolutionary greetings to the occupying workers producing the Strike Bike in the German city of Nordhausen.
Your action is an inspiring example to all workers. While an isolated self-managed factory is not a solution to capitalist exploitation, you have destroyed a myth.
You are demonstrating that the world can run without bosses and pointing the way to the workers’ self-management which will be universal under libertarian communism.
Victory to the Strike Bike workers!
In Solidarity,
Melbourne Anarchist Communist Group
(Source: Retrieved on 11th October 2021 from anarkismo.net.) (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) John Howard, Liberal Party Prime Minister of Australia, is on the nose with workers and could very well lose the election on 24 November. Like the rest of the working class, we’d be delighted to see the back of him. And if the Liberal Party can be demolished in a landslide, so much the better.
There is a problem, however, with the strategy of voting Howard out. You have to vote “for” a given candidate or party, not against, so to vote Howard out requires voting for somebody else — and this means endorsing them as the appropriate government of Australia. So let’s think this through.
First cab off the rank, of course, is the ALP. Rather than recount its appalling history, we’ll just concentrate on the pre... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) The Brereton report about allegations of war crimes against Afghan civilians by Australian troops, mainly the Special Air Service Regiment, was met in November with gasps of shock by the capitalist media and the appointment of a special prosecutor to bring criminal charges. The prosecutor’s appointment, however, was also the signal for the issue to drop out of the media and normal service to resume in the area of propaganda glorifying the military. When trials eventually occur, it will be years after the report, when the military have fabricated a story to exonerate the institution, whatever the fate of the individuals mentioned.
Australia’s imperialist military and the governments that sent it to Afghanistan shouldn’t ge... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) 1915
On 25 April, Australian and other troops of the British Empire stormed a Turkish beach. Amid nationalist propaganda, nine million troops died fighting for their country’s capitalists in a war of economic rivalry between the imperialist powers. The European ruling classes set out to re-divide the colonies, slave labor and raw materials in Africa, Asia and the Pacific. From the safety of their offices and palaces the politicians, the capitalists and the crowned heads of Europe plotted the war and unprecedented numbers of young men were sent to their deaths. It was a demonstration of the efficiency of capitalism at applying murder on an industrial scale.
2008
Today, Australian troops assist in the United States occupations of... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) It’s not uncommon for contemporary Anarchists to say “class struggle is outmoded and isn’t how to make a revolution these days” or “the working class is so sexist and racist that we have to turn to radical struggles outside the workplace to get anywhere”. The Melbourne Anarchist Communist Group disagrees. We think these views are based on a mistaken idea of who the working class are and a lack of understanding of who has the power in our society.
The Working Class
The capitalist media have a sociological view of class. Their perspective is that the working class is composed of people in blue collar occupations, or people on low incomes. Often, they draw an even worse picture – they portray the w... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) Capitalism is the problem — not just Howard
Today is only the first step. The purpose of today’s rally is to assemble our forces for the coming struggle. This needs to be the launch of an ongoing campaign, growing till every workplace in Australia is part of it. Talk to friends, neighbors, family, workmates. Get organized and then act. We mustn’t stop until we win.
Howard will go as far as we let him. The laws the Government have announced are just the first installment. Howard has already said he’ll be back for more next year. They want to make effective unionism illegal and give employers total power in the workplace. The only answer is to hit the bosses where it hurts — the pocket. We have to use d... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) The Melbourne Anarchist Communist Group believes that workers’ revolution is the only way to achieve a society of peace, freedom and equality for all. This is not a fashionable view.
It is understandable that our view isn’t fashionable for two reasons. First, the capitalist media and capitalist educational institutions work hard to build faith in other roads to a good society, or to discredit the very idea. Second, the failure of States that uphold workers’ revolution to achieve a free and equal society has done much to discredit both the objective and the strategy. So people who still believe in workers’ revolution have some explaining to do. The MACG believes it can make a good case.
Before the rise of industrial... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)