Solidarity meets in cities all around the country. Check here for details of the latest upcoming meetings.

MELBOURNE

Why Australia should break ties with Israel
6.30pm Tuesday January 13
John Curtin hotel, opp Trades Hall, cnr Lygon and Victoria sts (Pls note different venue due to summer break)

Melbourne Solidarity meets 6:30pm every Tuesday at the New International Bookshop, Trades Hall, corner of Victoria Parade and Lygon Street, Carlton. All welcome. For more information contact David on 0418 316 310 or melbourne<at>solidarity.net.au

BRISBANE

Brisbane Solidarity meets 7pm every Tuesday. Meetings are held at the the Trades and Labour Council Building, Level 2, 16 Peel St, South Brisbane (unless otherwise listed). All welcome. For more information contact Rob on 0424 265 730 or brisbane<at>solidarity.net.au

Israel, imperialism and resistance

A discussion on Israel's recent assault on Gaza and the relationship to imperialism, both in the US and at home.

Wednesday 7th of January, 7pm, Three Monkeys Cafe, 58 Mollison Street South Brisbane

The relationship between oppression and class

The process of exploitation, Marx argued, forces workers to act collectively to change the world. Oppression very often has the opposite effect. In light of the campaign against the Northern Territory Intervention and debates and how to beat racism, this talk and discussion will discuss the Marxist analysis of oppression and the relationship between oppressed groups and the working class.

Wednesday 14h of January, 7pm, Three Monkeys Cafe, 58 Mollison Street South Brisbane

SYDNEY

Hamas: the changing face of Palestinian resistance
7pm Wednesday January 14

Sydney Solidarity meets 7pm every Wednesday at the Newtown Neighbourhood Centre, opposite the Newtown Train Station on King Street. All welcome. For more information contact Jean on 0449 646 593 or sydney<at>solidarity.net.au

CANBERRA

For more information contact Ben on 0439 779 358.

PERTH

For more information contact Phil on 0417 904 329 or perth<at>solidarity.net.au

Following the outpouring of thousands onto the streets last week, there will be more rallies for Gaza happening this month. Details here.

Melbourne

Rally and march for Gaza, 2pm, Sunday 18th of Jan, Victorian State Library, corner of Swanston and La Trobe streets, Melbourne

Stop the massacre! End the siege now! No to Israel's war crimes! Oppose the Australian government's backing of Israel!

Organised by Justice for Palestine, for more info call 0439454375 or 0418819548.

Brisbane

Israeli troops out of Gaza

End the massacre  Free Palestine

Rally 2pm, Saturday the 10th of January at Queens Park, corner of Elizabeth and George sts, City

Speakers will include:
Michael Shaik: Australians for Palestine
Graham Perrett MP: Federal Member for Moreton
Amanda Richards: Assistant General Secretary Queensland Council of Unions

Organised by Palestine Solidarity, Fair Go for Palestine and Stop the War Collective

For more info phone 0413 783 853 (Abdalla), 0401 586 923 (Hamish)

Sydney

Candlelight vigil for Gaza victims

From 5.30pm Thursday 8 January
Sydney Town Hall

Emergency rally

Stop the War on Gaza

End the brutal siege, bombing and invasion of Palestine
End the Rudd government's support for Israel's massacres
Suspend all Australia-Israel ties until Gaza is free
Freedom and self-determination for Palestine

2pm Sunday 18 January
Sydney Town Hall

Protest initiated by the Gaza defence committee contact Tim Dobson 0430 209 865 or Dr Ghassan Achi 0408 605 437

The next Gaza Defence Committee meeting will be at 7pm Monday January 12 downstairs at University of Technology Sydney (UTS) tower building on Broadway, walking distance from Central station. Look for signs from street level.

THOUSANDS of people have rallied across Australia in the last week to protest Israel's recent military bombardment and siege of the Gaza strip. 

They are part of a global response of millions who are taking to the streets from Egypt to Mumbai to Washington, galvanised in response to the devastation in Palestine and determined to win justice for Palestinian people. Over sixty thousand took to the streets of London and protests of several thousand have been held in virtually every Middle Eastern capital.

The rallies held in Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra and Brisbane demanded an end to the massacre of Palestinians, to Israel's blockade of food and supplies to Gaza, and to the ongoing occupation of Palestine. More are scheduled for the coming weeks. The passionate protests have drawn huge levels of support from the Palestinian and Muslim communities in Australia, and are some of the biggest anti-war demonstrations here since Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 2006.

The ceasefire
Importantly, the rallies have criticised the Rudd government's support of Israel and Acting Prime Minister Julia Gillard's shameful justification of Israel's attack: 'Obviously, [Hamas] have broken the ceasefire and engaged in an act of aggression against Israel. Israel has responded.'

It has been widely reported that the conflict began when Hamas broke the ceasefire with rockets. It was in fact broken when Israeli troops conducted a raid on November 4th, the day of the US election. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz has reported that Israeli defence minister Ehud Barak asked the military to prepare an assault over six months ago.

Israel is the fourth-largest military power in the world, funded by an average of US $3 billion each year in military aid. Their strategy of annihilation of Palestine is also economic as well as political. As Joseph Choonara writes in the British Socialist Worker: 'Since June 2007, Israel's economic strangulation of Gaza has shut down 95% of industry and left three quarters of the population dependent on humanitarian aid for survival.' Desmond Tutu has called the situation in Gaza 'worse than apartheid South Africa'.

The resistance of a starved, imprisoned and oppressed population is now being used as a justification for more savage attacks. The leader of the Israeli defence force has boasted that his army aims to create the 'maximum number of casualties' that will send Gaza 'decades into the past'.

Israel and US strategy
The attack is the latest in a long history of Israeli state violence and terror. It is an attempt by Israel to impose total dominance over the Palestinians and prove its might as an agent of US imperialism in the region. The state of Israel itself is racist — founded on the mass murder and expulsion of Palestinians. It was also intrinsically bound from the start to US interests in the Middle East. The US-led 'war on terror' has provided the ideological justification for this most recent assault.

US support for Israel is part of an ongoing strategy to dominate the Middle East. Mired in two unsuccessful wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the success of Israel is of supreme importance to the US ruling class. The destruction of Hamas would prove that the US and its allies still have the power to control weaker governments and resistance movements in the region. Obama's complicit silence suggests continuity with this view, and will surely be one of the first disappointments of those in the US who voted for an end to a warmongering government.

Rudd and the 'War on Terror'
Rudd's response was equally as pitiful. His government retains Howard's unflinching commitment to the US alliance, and support for the brutality that this entails. Despite the pantomime of 'withdrawal', hundreds of Australian troops still remain in Iraq and an increased commitment to Afghanistan looks likely. Rudd has enthusiastically embraced a 'Deputy Sherrif' role in the South Pacific, and wants to maintain Australian power in the region.

Increases in military spending budgeted under Howard are set to continue, quarantined from Rudd's "razor gang" that will slash public spending in response to the economic crises.

And the anti-Muslim racism that characterised the Howard years lives on. 'Anti-terrorism' laws have seen Muslims in Melbourne convicted for thought-crime and nine Sydney men remain on trial. The government has refused to take any action against Federal police responsible for the persecution of Dr Mohamed Haneef.

Rudd's recent calls for a 'ceasefire' represents two things: that he understands the level of opposition to the attacks coming from the Australian people, but also that he wants to portray the onslaught as a 'battle between equals', rather than a murderous assault by the US's main ally in the Middle East. Israel used the last 'ceasefire' to build up military capacity and to tighten the blockade of Gaza. They also launched repeated raids that killed hundreds of Palestinians. The Israeli welfare minister said this week that 'a humanitarian truce… does not contradict preparations for a military operation.'

Resistance
The left in Australia needs to be at the heart of protests condemning Israel's bombardment of Gaza and calling for an end to the Rudd government's ongoing support of the 'war on terror', the US-Australia alliance and the state of Israel. We need to harness the energy of the protests defending Gaza to continue to demand the immediate withdrawal of troops from Iraq and begin to build a long-needed campaign to end the war in Afghanistan.

by Amy Thomas and Paddy Gibson

See here for details of further actions across the country.

by Giles Ji Ungpakorn,

from Turn Left Thailand

The appointment of "Democrat" Party leader Abhisit Vejjajiva as the new Thai Prime Minister is the final stage of the second coup against an elected government. After the deliberate chaos created by the PAD's seizure of the airports, the courts stepped in to dissolve the hugely popular governing party for the second time. The Army chief then called a meeting of Democrat Party parliamentarians along with some of the most corrupt elements of the governing coalition parties. It is widely believed that the Army chief and others, threatened and bribed MPs to change sides. Chief among them is "Newin Chitchorp", who was named by his father after the infamous Burmese dictator.



     The Democrat Party is known among the cyber community as the "Cockroach Party". This is because cockroaches live in filthy places and can survive even nuclear holocausts. The party has survived for many years, forming governments after various crises. These so-called Democrats have systematically backed anti-democratic measures. They supported the 2006 coup, the military constitution and the PAD. One Democrat Party MP was the leader of the mob that took over the international airport. Over the last 30 years, the Democrat party has never won an overall majority in parliament. It does not represent the people. During the Thaksin years it spent the whole time criticising the universal health care scheme and other pro-poor policies. After the 1997 economic crisis it used state money to prop up the banks and guarantee the savings of the rich, while telling the poor to fend for themselves and depend on their families. Even Abhisit's name in Thai means "privilege". He is an Oxford graduate from a wealthy family.



    The first coup, on 19th September 2006, was a straight forward military coup, using tanks and soldiers wearing Royal yellow ribbons. The military junta tore-up the democratic constitution and replaced it with an authoritarian one. Half the Senate was appointed by the military and many so-called independent bodies were staffed by junta supporters. The military appointed themselves to lucrative state enterprise positions. Then they got the courts to dissolve the Thai Rak Thai Party despite the fact that it had won repeated elections.



    Thaksin's Thai Rak Thai party was and remains hugely popular among the majority of Thais. This party introduced the first universal healthcare scheme and projects to stimulate village economies. The aim was to develop Thailand as a whole, increasing the education and health status of the general population, thus turning them into "stake-holders". This was a winning formula, an alliance between a pro-poor capitalist party and the poor, both urban and rural.



    But Thaksin's modernisation plans, which also included major infrastructure development such as public transport projects for Bangkok, upset the Old Order. This "Old Order" is not headed by the King, as many commentators think. The Old Order is made up of local political mafias, the army, conservative judges and the Democrat Party. They were joined by businessmen like Sonti Limtongkul, who initially supported Thaksin, but fell out over personal interests. The PAD mobilised a fascist-style middle class mob to cause chaos. They seized the Government House, destroyed offices, stole weapons and then tried to close parliament. There final act was the take-over of the two international airports with the open support of the military. The PAD and the Old Order want to reduce democracy further. They want to reduce the number of elected members of parliament, stiffen Les Majesty laws and destroy the alliance between the poor and Thaksin. They are angry that the poor have become politicised. They hate the fact that state budgets were spent on healthcare, rural development and education. Instead they want to cling to their old privileges, espouse strict "Monetarism" (except for elite and military spending) and advocate that the poor should be "Sufficient" in their poverty. These people use neo-liberal free-market ideas in association with the King's "Sufficiency Economy" ideology. Their excuse for opposing democracy is their belief that the poor are too stupid to deserve the right to vote.



    The Thai King has always been weak[1] <#11e39dddcb59ea05__ftn1> [1]. His status has been systematically promoted by military juntas and the elite in general. We are all socialised to think that the King is an "ancient Absolute Monarchy", while at the same time being within the Constitution. This picture of power creates a shell to protect the entire ruling class and the status quo under a climate of fear. The army especially needs such a legitimising shell because it is no longer OK for the military hold political power, unless it can claim to protect the Monarchy.



    In previous political crises, such as in 1973 and 1992, the King only intervened late in the day after it was clear who had won. In the present crisis the King has remained silent and has not made any attempts to resolve the crisis. He missed his annual birthday speech on 4th December this year, claiming a sore throat.



    The Royal dimension to this crisis is that it is a struggle between two elite groups. One side have been much more successful in claiming Royal legitimacy. But ironically this claim by the anti-Thaksin lot is causing a crisis for the Monarchy because it associates PAD violence and law-breaking with the Monarchy and the actions by the military have created an image that the Monarchy is against the majority of the population. The support shown by the Queen for the PAD has also angered or disappointed many Thais.



    The new government will be made up of a coalition of some of the most corrupt and unprincipled politicians. This shows that the elites' opposition to Thaksin was never really about preventing corruption or vote buying, despite the fact that many ordinary middle-class people might have felt that it was. Even the Democrat Party has a history of vote buying and corruption. The Democrat governor of Bangkok had to resign recently under a corruption cloud. Yet the party was not dissolved by the courts. So far, Thaksin and his fellow politicians have only been found guilty of technicalities. No serious corruption charges have been proven. No evidence of real election fraud has ever been unearthed. In fact, Thaksin's party was reducing the importance of vote-buying through pro-poor policies. This is what angered the Old Order. It meant that they could only overthrow his government buy promising more to the poor or by using  various means to organise coups.



There are a number of questions which need to be put to the new government:

1.     Will the government punish PAD leaders for breaking the law, including the Democrat MP who took over the airport? Will the PAD be made to answer for the damage at Government House? Will the Democrats expel their MP who lead the airport occupation?

2.     Will the military chiefs be sacked for breaking the law and intervening in politics. Will they be sacked for giving the green-light to the take-over of the airports and thus compromising airport security?

3.     Will the government defend the undemocratic constitution or will it amend the constitution to increase democracy?

4.     Will elections be held as soon as possible to allow the Thai population to have a say?

5.     What serious measures will the government take in order to protect the poor from the economic crisis. What job creating policies do they have? How can they stop workers being sacked from factories. Will they increase wages and cut VAT in order to stimulate the economy? Will they increase taxation on the rich in order to help the poor?

6.     Will the government punish state officials who murdered unarmed demonstrators in the South at Takbai during the Thaksin government? Will they withdraw troops and police so that a peaceful political solution can be achieved?

7.     Will the government ensure a balanced media by allowing significant space for Red Shirt anti-government critics? Or will the government increase censorship and media bias? Will they repeal the les majesty law and allow public scrutiny and criticism of the courts?

Many of us can guess what the answers will be….

Refugee groups today called for the permanent closure of the high security immigration detention facility on Christmas Island.

“Christmas Island detention centre should never have been built and should not be opened. It is a symbol of everything that was wrong with the refugee policies under the Howard government,” said Ian Rintoul, spokesperson for the refugee Action Coalition. “The asylum seekers presently on the island should be brought to the mainland,” he said.

“In August the Minister Chris Evans said that detention would be a last resort and that the Immigration department would have to show cause why anyone should be kept in detention. The Minister lacks the courage of his own convictions. He has caved into the scaremongering of the Opposition’s immigration spokesperson.

“He knows that the vast majority of these asylum seekers have valid protection claims yet he is keeping them confined on Christmas Island. Shamefully Christmas Island has become Labor’s Nauru. Worse Labor is repeating the discredited arguments that Christmas Island and mandatory detention is about being tough on border protection. It is a human rights abuses. Asylum seekers have never been a threat. They are not a threat now,” said Ian Rintoul.

“The 90 day deadline for processing asylum applications means that some of the people on Christmas Island should at least be living in the community, if not already have been granted protection visas. No body thought that Chris Evans would be confining processed asylum seekers to Christmas Island. There are no resources to care for the asylum seekers and they are so remote there is no access to community and legal support.”

“A humanitarian refugee policy demands the closure of Christmas Island detention centre and the end of keeping Christmas Island, Ashmore Reef and other islands excised from the Migration Act. Bring the asylum seekers to the mainland, Minister!”

Refugee Action Coalition media release, contact Ian Rintoul 0417 275 713 for more information

Panos Garganas from Greece reports on the mass movement sparked by the police killing of 15-year old, which has detonated wider anger against the government over cutbacks in response to the economic crisis

The furious response to the police killing of a 15 year old boy in Athens last Saturday has seen mass protests, strikes and student walkouts rock Greece’s right wing government.

Police shot Alexandros Grigoropoulos in the Exarchia area of the capital city on Saturday evening.

The killing has provoked rage among workers and students already angry at the government's neoliberal economic policies.

Immediate protests broke out as news spread. The police attacked the demonstrators and people smashed up the centre of the city.

Movement

While much of the international media has focussed on the riots, they have virtually ignored the mass movement sweeping Greece’s streets and workplaces. This has successfully targeted anger against the government.

Large demonstrations took place across the country on Sunday calling for the resignation of the interior minister and punishment for the police involved.

There was a mass walkout by school students in around 100 areas on Monday morning. They then protested outside local police stations.

The atmosphere was very similar to that of March 2003 when tens of thousands of young people spontaneously walked out of schools to demonstrate against war in Iraq.

The anger has spread throughout the population. Over 40,000 people joined a demonstration in Athens this Monday evening against the killing—called by the anti-capitalist left.

There was a separate demonstration by the Greek Communist Party nearby, but there were so many people that the two protests merged into one.

The government has a clear strategy—to use the police to break up demonstrations, leaving people to riot. It is shutting down colleges and schools in an attempt to stop people coming together to organise.

The police attacked Monday night’s demonstration with teargas, and smoke and percussion grenades, forcing people to disperse.

Large groups of young people then engaged in a running battle with the authorities. There were other protests across the country on Monday that followed this formula.

The government is hoping that public opinion will harden against the rioters and the situation will calm down. But workers and students have taken the lead in turning up the heat on the government.

There were stoppages in local authorities on Monday as workers attended mass meetings, which voted for resolutions supporting the young people against the police.

The teachers' unions in primary and high schools struck on Tuesday of this week, the day of Alexandros's funeral, so that students could attend the funeral. The lecturers' union called a three-day strike from Monday of this week.

Students

University students have been at the forefront of the struggle against the government's plans to privatise higher education.

There was a three-day occupation of the colleges last week – a continuation of the movement that rocked Greece 18 months ago.

The unions have also called a general strike for Wednesday of this week against the government's budget, which will give 28 billion euros to the bankers.

This is a very explosive mix for the unpopular government. It has been rocked by a series of scandals – two ministers were forced to resign earlier this year over their roles in land deals between the state and a wealthy monastery.

A year ago the government called a snap election as it faced a wave of student occupations against its education plans. It won a small majority and thought this would get it out of its mess.

But now the government is in even worse trouble than before. The police officers responsible for Alexandros's killing have been arrested and the government has said that they will be punished. But their first response was an attempt to cover up the killing.

The police claimed they had been attacked and then fired a warning shot that ricocheted, hitting Alexandros. But there were too many witnesses who have said it was a direct shot. The government had to move against the police in an attempt to calm the anger.

The mood is such that even shopowners who have had their windows smashed made sympathetic comments, such as, "It is no time to talk of compensation as a young boy has just died."

Things are collapsing at the top of society, while people on the ground are in a fighting mood.

There is a planned rally/vigil for Alexandros Grigoropoulos in Melbourne ­
the city with the biggest Greek population outside of Greece: Saturday, 13th December, 2008
1:00PM outside the Greek Consulate
37-29 Albert Road, South Melbourne (take St Kilda Rd trams)

The following is an article from Workers Solidarity the paper of our sister organisation in Greece (translated from Greek)

We can overthrow them!

On Saturday December 6, the Police made two murderous attacks. At dawn they beat the thousands of immigrants who were gathered outside the Office for Foreigners and one of them is fighting for his life at the State Hospital in a suburb of Athens. In the evening, the riot police murdered a 15 year old in cold blood in Exarhia.

The response was immediate and explosive. Thousands took to the streets Saturday night and Sunday not only in the centre of Athens but in other cities.

In Athens students, workers, thousands of people of all ages chanted slogans such as “They kill immigrants, they kill students, pimps, killers, racists” and “They give the banks money, the youth bullets, this government's days are numbered” as the march went up towards the Police Headquarters and then back to Parliament.

The government propaganda began immediately. The responsible Minister Prokopis Pavlopoulos had the nerve to call a press conference to declare his confidence in the leadership of Police and say that the angry demonstrators is only “extremists” who are exploiting the indignation for their own purposes.

The Prime Minister Karamanlis and his ministers are in disarray. Thid government of scandals, economic crisis and the murderous repression is politically isolated.

- They gave billions to bankers at a time when people are losing their jobs and the monthly wage is not enough by the end of the month.

- They are responsible for the scandals like the real estate agents at Vatopedi Monastery who robbed pension funds, and the abduction of Pakistanis and illegal wire tapping with the secret services of the U.S. and Britain.

- They say that the free market works and only needs more “reforms” and privatisations like those that have led the economy in the worst crisis since 1930.

- They have sent frigates to Somalia and soldiers to Afghanistan and Kosovo to participate in imperialist wars.

So the demonstrations of anger against the police murder are not only justified, and cannot be isolated with cries of broken shop windows, but are the beginning of an escalation of the movement to topple the government of murderers here and now.

Action

We can and must step up action demanding the killer policemen be punished, that Pavlopoulos and Chinofotis resign, that the police be disarmed, and that the government of Karamanlis fall.

The steps for such an escalation can be as follows:

- Students must this Monday enter the classrooms at colleges and schools, organise meetings and plan occupations linking anger against repression with its requests against the dissolution of Public Education. They can bring out the teachers with them and come down to the rally Monday 8 / 12 at Propylaea as organised force.

Already the POSDEP (Hellenic Federation of University Teachers' Associations) declared a 3-day STRIKE 8, 9, Dec 10

- On the side of the students is the stand taken by workers and their unions starting with the general strike Wednesday December 10. Next to the demands of workers against dismissals, price rises and privatisation the general strikes should call for the government of murderers to resign. Such a strike explosion may spread this movement to all workplaces, creating a force that can defeat the police repression and the system that creates it.

- To realise all this we need a strong and organised anti-capitalist left. This is not the first time we have faced such a situation. Older and younger people remember having the killing by police of Michael Kalteza in 1985, in the middle of a large wave of action against the austerity programs of Simitis who was then Minister of Economy. That movement failed to get justice because the unity of students and the working class was broken by the parliamentary left which: separated the “wild” youth with their more radical demonstrations, and the “responsible” left that looked to change through parliament.

We can avoid the mistakes of the past, strengthening the radical left actions and perspective and strip away the murderers, their government and their system. Organise, come together and fight.

———————————————————————————

Interview with Panos Garganas

http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=16684

———————————————————————————

There is a planned rally/vigil for Alexandros Grigoropoulos in Melbourne ­
the city with the biggest Greek population outside of Greece:

Saturday, 13th December, 2008
1:00PM outside the Greek Consulate
37-29 Albert Road, South Melbourne (take St Kilda Rd trams)
Bring Greek music, friends, candles, flowers, etc.

About 40 people rallied in the Coburg mall in Melbourne on Saturday December 6 for government intervention to save ABC childcare centres.

The speakers were Paul Slape, National Secretary of the Australian Services Union, Cr Toby Archer (Greens) and Chris Breen for Solidarity. Carlo Carlo, the local state Labor MP, promised to come but didn't show. Daniella Olea, Solidarity and a former childcare worker, chaired.

There was a good mix of local lefties, parents with kids and childcare workers.  All the speakers talked about the failure of the market and the need for public ownership/control of childcare to go along with public money.

It gave a taste of what would be possible if the unions, Greens and Labor left called significant action.

Rallies will be held around the country in Mparntwe-Alice Springs, Sydney and Brisbane on Saturday December 13 to mark international Human Rights Day calling for the Rudd government to:

Reinstate the Racial Discrimination Act
Repeal the intervention laws

Mparntwe-Alice Springs
4pm Saturday 13th December Council Lawns
Call Barb: 0401291166 Visit http://rollbacktheintervention.wordpress.com/

Sydney
10am Saturday December 13 at The Block, Redfern
For more info call Monique 0415410558, stoptheintervention@gmail.com
Visit http://www.stoptheintervention.org/

Brisbane
2pm Saturday 13th December Queens Park 2pm
Call Rob 0424265730