Cuba: challenges & changes

[The slide show and text of a talk given to the Geelong branch of Socialist Alliance on October 6, 2010. For a PDF of slideshow see here.]

Market greed or a planned economy for social need?

[The slide show and text of a talk given as part of Melbourne Socialist Alliance’s Socialist Ideas Seminar series on August 28, 2010. For a PDF of slideshow see here.]

The starting point for a discussion of planned economy or the present market-based capitalist one has to be the situation we are facing today. Humanity faces some huge problems.

Free speech victory in Brunswick

[An edited version of this article appeared in Green Left Weekly, #841, June 23, 2010]

Green Left Weekly and Socialist Alliance have won a victory in our free speech struggle at Brunswick's Barkly Square shopping centre. Our Saturday morning card table stalls can now continue as before.

Eritrea's national day

[Greetings given to May 22, 2010 meeting at the Melbourne Resistance Centre celebrating Eritrea's national day.]

Comrades, on behalf of Socialist Alliance I would like to extend warm solidarity greetings to this meeting celebrating Eritrea's national day.

Free speech? Sort of . . .

[Green Left Weekly, #838, May 26, 2010]

We supposely live in a free country. But do we actually have free speech in Australia? Well, sort of . . .

Obviously, the situation here is completely different to a military dictatorship where people live in fear of a knock on the door. In some countries there is no Green Left Weekly, no right to protest, and dissidents are jailed and tortured. In Australia we do have some real and important democratic rights. However, there are severe practical limitations on effectively exercising these rights — that is, exercising them in a way that anyone actually hears what you're saying.

'Socialism of the 21st century' and left unity

[I was assigned to draft the Socialist Alliance leaflet below. It was first distributed in Melbourne at the end of March 2010.]

The triumphalism spouted by capitalist apologists in the early 1990s with the collapse of the Soviet Union has long gone. Today the problems are so obvious: global warming and the world economic slump are shaking the capitalist world and casting a growing shadow over the future.

Free speech under attack in Brunswick

[Green Left Weekly, #828, March 3, 2010]

MELBOURNE — Green Left Weekly is currently involved in a free-speech fight in the inner-city suburb of Brunswick. At the end of November, the management of the busy Barkly Square Shopping Centre stopped GLW from operating our regular Saturday morning card table stalls.