Critical Times

by Jefferson Lee (written 9/3/09 as my initial contribution to this website)

On Friday 24th April 2009 (Anzac Eve) at Leichhardt Town Hall in Sydney’s inner-West will be the “Inaugural Denis Kevans Memorial Anzac Eve Peace Concert” from 6pm-11pm as a fund-raiser for Leichhardt Council’s “Friends of Maliana” friendship city project.

The significance of this event is that it will be the first time in a decade and a half that the cultural hegemony of increasing militarism surrounding Anzac Day celebrations has faced a direct and conscious challenge from progressive forces in Sydney – outside of the marginalized sloganeering of a few predictable the ultra lefty.

Flash back to Australia and Anzac Days of yesteryear.

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US, global and Australian economies are threatened with meltdown.
Share prices tumble, real estate values fall, economic activity starts drying up, businesses wind back, cost of living goes up and workers are thrown on the scrap heap. Industrial production is winding down.

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All interested are invited to attend a Public Lecture given by

Professor Graham Priest
“A Prolegomenon to Any Planning for the Future”

5.00 – 6.30pm, Wednesday 22nd October, 2008
North Lecture Theatre 3
Flinders University, Adelaide

“Marx predicted a time at which the capitalist economic system would collapse.

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Is this the end of capitalism?

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The oil monopolies are giant foreign-owned juggernauts
making billions out of this country’s resources, squeezing
those who work for them and holding workers and small
business hostage to their petrol monopoly and their drive
for ever-increasing profits.

They are making billions while ordinary Australians scrimp
and save to afford the petrol they need to get to work.

The government is in league with the oil monopolies
in the ‘import parity pricing’ rort, insisting that Australia
remain tied to imported oil while the cleaner local product is
exported overseas.

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A plan to meet the oil crisis

Coalition MPs met on Monday in Canberra and failed to come up with any worthwhile policy to control the spiralling petrol prices. There was a lot of talk about various alternatives such as ethanol and converting vehicles to LPG but nothing is to be done to control prices, stopping the obvious collusion between the oil companies or lowering GST and excise on petrol. More radical policies such as nationalising the oil companies or looking for alternative sources of supply outside of those controlled by British and American oil companies will not have crossed the minds of Coalition MPs.

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Hello and welcome to the latest edition of Critical Times! Much has changed since we last produced an edition back in 2001, and yet it seems we face many of the same problems, only intensified. So why produce a newspaper at all? There is so much information in so many places these days – ‘it’s all out there’. Well, because we can! Here at Helps Road Institute we’ve been building Single Step Printing to the point where we can print our own paper on our own printing press. read more »

Welcome to the first edition of Critical Times.

We are living in a world of increasing contradictions, where what we are told is becoming further away from reality every day. Political leaders of all persuasions tell us that the economy is booming, that everything is rosy, we’ve ‘never had it so good’ – meanwhile, the realities of long-term entrenched unemployment (44,000 full time jobs lost last month), the crisis in our hospitals, and many other real issues continue to impact on the community. read more »