Critical Times

Source: Guardian

During the election campaign Tony Abbott made numerous
references to the “faceless men” of the Labor Party (ALP) who had
organised a coup and “executed an Australian prime minister”. It is
no secret that Labor men Bill Shorten, Paul Howes, David Feeney,
Don Farrell, Mark Arbib and Karl Bitar played a role in convincing
caucus that they should dump prime minister Kevin Rudd.
But they were not the faceless men behind the coup who really
wield the power in Australia.

Source: Guardian
by Bob Briton

Broadband internet access has emerged as a hot issue in the lead-up to Saturday’s federal election. The ALP’s $43 billion National Broadband Network (NBN) will be scuttled and replaced with a $6.3 billion patch-up of mostly existing infrastructure if the Coalition wins the poll.

Rumour has it that US arms manufacturer Raytheon is about to move into yet another South Australian school.

Apparently staff at Hallett Cove R-12 School were told that the school was going to have a relationship with a “defence” company – Raytheon.

No further information was forthcoming.

Thursday, August 05, 2010

Some bloody choice: the openly reactionary nightmare (above) or the lies and deception (below) in pursuit of the same agenda!

The Australian working class still maintains a social-democratic illusion that bourgeois parliamentarism is genuine democracy in action.

For this sin, candidates of the major parties are currently all over electors like a rash. Babies are being assaulted with kisses in shopping malls for the benefit of TV cameras.

This letter to the editor was published in “The Advertiser” (Adelaide) on July 10th.

Dear Editor,
PM Julia Gillard wants East Timor to help secure our borders. In 2006 our government “persuaded” the Timorese to sign an agreement leaving them without a border with Australia for 50 years; long enough to extract all the gas from Greater Sunrise.

Please Watch! New Video!

http://www.blip.tv/file/3946822

All the nuclear myths debunked in 30-minutes by Kevin Kamps of Beyond Nuclear

In this compelling new 30-minute television interview, Kevin Kamps of Beyond Nuclear explodes the myths now being promulgated by those promoting nuclear power.

Source: Australia-Cuba Friendship Society Newsletter, March 2010

by Dr Mae-Wan Ho

Cuba is where agriculture without fossil fuels has been put to its greatest test, and it has passed with flying colours. The year 1989 ushered in the “Special Period”, a scenario that will hit some countries in the not too distant future unless they prepare for it right now.

Before 1989, Cuba was a model Green Revolution farm economy, based on huge production units of state-owned farms, and dependent on vast quantities of imported oil, chemicals and machinery to produce export crops.

Save Our Gulfs Embassy is being launched at

11am Saturday 31 July

64a Semaphore rd, Semaphore

What can an Embassy do to Save Our Gulfs?

The Save Our Gulfs Embassy follows the proud tradition of the Fresh Water Embassy.

The Fresh Water Embassy set up everyday for eight weeks during June and July 2009, to say NO to the building of the Regulator across the River Murray at Clayton. Local people served hot tea, coffee, scones and jam and provided a warm fire – and handed out maps, pamphlets, articles and conversation about why the regulator was not a good idea for the environment.

Adelaide construction worker Ark Tribe returned to the courts of the capitalist class on June 20.

He is being tried on charges that he refused to attend a compulsory and secret interrogation by the thugs of the Australian Building and Construction Commission, created to intimidate workers in the building industry.

In a tragic twist of fate Ark’s return to court came just three days after a fellow construction worker was killed at the Adelaide Desalination Plant site (below).

Source: The Guardian

by Bob Briton

Gillard’s promotion was supposed to take the pressure off the federal government in the lead-up to the election. The spin-doctors would project the backlog of blame onto Rudd – who headed a “good government that had lost its way” – and the media would be happy to let them. Big business and other conservative forces were putting up stern resistance on a number of issues like the mining “super profits tax” and, before that, climate change.

Source: Vanguard

The swift deposing of Kevin Rudd
as Labor Party leader and Prime
Minister of Australia on 24 June and
his replacement by Julia Gillard,
Deputy Prime Minister, sent shock
waves through the country. It is
widely accepted as a coup.

And a coup it is, mainly engineered
and led by most powerful sections
in Australia’s ruling class of mining
monopolies and Murdoch’s monopoly
press.

(Warning to indigenous persons: contains images of persons now dead).

Progressive singer-songwriter Shane Howard is releasing his new album Goanna Dreaming this month, touring nationally from July 2.

For South Australians, Shane can be seen on Saturday 18 September 2010 at the Singing Gallery at McLaren Vale and on Sunday 19 September at the Church of the Trinity on Goodwood Road, Clarence Park.

Source: Ark Tribe’s Site

With Ark’s hearing not listed on Thursday, it was left until Friday before a ruling was made on the CFMEU’s day 1 argument that the ABCC staff member who laid the charges against Ark Tribe was not authorised to do so and as such charges should be dropped.

With hundreds gathering outside the magistrates court in the centre of Adelaide, the mood as buoyant; there was a feeling that this might be it, that the charges would be dropped and Ark would be able to get back to a normal life and back on the job.

Sadly, it wasn’t to be.

The CFMEU Mining Division has responded satirically to the Mining Billionaires hysterical opposition to the super profits tax with the release of a new video on youtube, “It’s Going To Ruin Us!”

Click on link below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4PcQfz0MfU

Source: Vanguard
31 May 2010

The Rudd Government’s proposed 40% tax on the super profits of the giant multinational and local mining monopolies should be supported.

It has thrown the spotlight on the critical question of who owns Australia’s rich natural resources and the massive profits created by workers’ labour in the mining and transport of these non-renewable resources. It begs questions of how taxes on national resources should be used and how the country should deal with the foreign dominated mining industry.

Source: Vimeo

The Story of Cap & Trade is a fast-paced, fact-filled look at the leading climate solution being discussed at Copenhagen and on Capitol Hill. Host Annie Leonard introduces the energy traders and Wall Street financiers at the heart of this scheme and reveals the “devils in the details” in current cap and trade proposals: free permits to big polluters, fake offsets and distraction from what’s really required to tackle the climate crisis. If you’ve heard about Cap & Trade, but aren’t sure how it works (or who benefits), this is the film is for you.

Source: ARK’S TRIBE
Tuesday, May 25, 2010

In approximately three weeks South Australian construction worker Ark Tribe faces court to find out if he will be the first rank and file worker jailed by the Howard and now Rudd Government’s repressive anti-worker task force, the ABCC. There is no doubt that Ark’s case has been shaping up as one of the most important in recent industrial relations history and it’s up to all of us to stand up for a worker’s basic right to safety in the workplace.

Come to Victoria Square at 8.

Source: Progressive Educators

We call upon all trade union colleagues to stand behind the Australian Education Union as it faces the challenges of the next few weeks.

The moratorium will stay in place until Julia Gillard agrees to prevent third parties from using the NAPLAN data to create school league tables.

The Olympic Dam uranium and copper mine at Roxby Downs is susceptible to seismic activity that could result in the release of radioactive tailings into ground and surface waters, together with the dispersal of radioactive gases and particles in to the atmosphere.

The mine is currently operated underground, but is due to be expanded into the world’s largest open cut uranium mine by owners BHP-Billiton with the active support of the South Australian state Labor government.

A 35 kilometre long Mashers Fault line runs through the centre of the ore body and the proposed open pit.

by Mark Walker

Source: Charles Sturt Ratepayers & Residents

I attended the above workshop arranged by Council at the West Torrens Football Clubrooms on Wednesday 21st April 2010. There were around 80 people in attendance, with each of the 9 tables of around 8 people having 2 Council staff, plus a number of other Council staff & members, including the Mayor Harold Anderson and the CEO. The workshop was led by a Gilbert Rochecouste, employed by the to guide us in, I believe, accepting Council’s unmovable point of view.