The Chomsky Forum has organised a reading group/discussion on 'Chomsky on neoliberalism and financial crisis'

Come along and be part of the discussion! (You don't have to do the reading, but you'll get a lot more out of the evening if you do!)

Essential reading:

Recently, The 'Great Moderation' and the International Assault on Labor
http://www.chomsky.info/articles/20110502.htm

This 2008 interview with Chomsky on Znet http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/20081013.htm

Chapter 1 'The World Bank, GATT and Free Trade' of Keeping the Rabble in Line - http://books.zcommunications.org/chomsky/rab/rab-contents.html

Piece by Lindsay Hawkins in Mutiny 60 on resistance to the restrictions public sector wage rises - http://jura.org.au/files/jura/Mutiny%2060%20web.pdf

Extra reading:

Dave Eden's article on the Budget in Mutiny Zine 60, http://jura.org.au/files/jura/Mutiny%2060%20web.pdf

Chomsky's book 'Keeping the Rabble in Line' - http://books.zcommunications.org/chomsky/rab/rab-contents.html

Jura is excited to host an evening discussion with acclaimed US broadcsater Sasha Lilley, host of the program of radical ideas Against the Grain and editor of 'Capital and its Discontents Conversations with Radical Thinkers in a Time of Tumult', recently published by PM Press. Join us for an evening of discussion of capitalism, crisis, and the left.

Capitalism is stumbling, empire is faltering, and the floods and cyclones are intensifying. Yet many people are still grappling with understanding these multiple crises and to find a way forward to a just future. Into the breach come the insights of Capital and Its Discontents, which cut through the gristle to get to the heart of the matter about the nature of capitalism and neoliberalism, capitalism's vulnerabilities at this conjuncture and what can we do to hasten its demise.

Through a series of incisive conversations with some of the most eminent thinkers and political economists on the Left including David Harvey, Ellen Meiksins Wood, Mike Davis, Leo Panitch, Tariq Ali, and Noam Chomsky, Sasha Lilley's Capital and Its Discontents illuminates the dynamic contradictions undergirding capitalism. The left luminaries in Capital and Its Discontents look at potential avenues out of the mess as well as wrong turns and needless detours drawing lessons from the inner workings of capitalism, the history of post-colonial states in the Global South, struggles against imperialism past and present, the eternal pendulum swing of radicalism, the corrosive legacy of postmodernism, and the potentialities of the radical tradition.

This discussion evening is FREE!

UPDATE: Sasha will also be on Workers Radio on Radio Skid Row - 88.9FM. Thursday morning from 8.10am to 8.40am. Check it out! http://www.radioskidrow.org/

Sydney Anarchist Summer School will be an educational conference and convergence happening on the 18th-20th February 2011, at Jura Books, Black Rose Books and other community venues in Sydney (to be confirmed). Anyone is welcome to come and learn and be part of the discussion.

The summer school is being organised by a collective of people with backgrounds in radical reading groups and student environmental groups, and various anarchist collectives in Sydney.

There will be three days of workshop and forums on different aspects of anarchist theory and practice. Some current topics that are proposed are: classical and modern anarchist theory, autonomous Marxism, the overlap and differences between anarchism and socialism, mutual aid, anarchist influence and involvement in social movements, and different streams of anarchist thought and action.

The organising collective would like to hear your ideas on what you would like to see happen at the convergence, what topics you would be keen to learn about, and to invite you to submit workshops that you can run. You can submit your ideas and workshop plans by emailing anarchistsummerschool [at]gmail.com or by submitting a short form at
http://anarchistsummerschool.weebly.com/

Interested folks are also invited to join the organising collective. The collective meets weekly to organise things like venue, program content and workshops, and food.

On the final day of Summer School, anarchist groups and collectives are invited to an assembly on the anarchist movement in Australia, where groups can exchange ideas and plan new ways of working together in the future.

And it's all FREE!

See you in February!

http://anarchistsummerschool.weebly.com/

A number of us are going along to this rally, and will have an anarcho stall there. You should come too! Sydney Town Hall, 12pm, Wednesday 15th December 2010.

---

http://www.asu.asn.au/sacs/payup.html

Pay Up! No more lip service to equal pay

Pay Up - No More Lip Service to Equal Pay is a campaign of the Australian Services Union (ASU). The ASU is the union of Community Sector Workers.

Community Sector workers are undervalued and underpaid and not properly respected. Their work has traditionally been seen as "women's work" and their wages have been restricted as a result.

In 2010, Unions led by the ASU and supported by the ACTU and the Federal Government are lodging a test case in Fair Work Australia using the new Equal Remuneration Laws embedded in the Fair Work Act. The case will impact the working lives of about 200,000 community workers.

The Community Sector is largely reliant on Government funding to run its essential services and to pay the wages of the workers. Winning the case will prove that these workers are undervalued - but, the case outcome alone will not correct the injustice. Workers need the Government to fund the outcome of the case to make Equal Pay a reality. ASU members and supporters will campaign for the funding and we invite you to get and stay involved by visiting the following sites.

This case is set to make history.

On 18 November 2010, the Commonwealth Government made its submission to Fair Work Australia about the ASU's Equal Pay case.

The ASU has a number of serious concerns about the Commonwealth's submission.

We continue to negotiate with the Commonwealth about our concerns and are making some progress. Other employer groups are opposing our claim - all of which shows the opposition that can surface against equal pay. We cannot be complacent - we must campaign continuously about equal pay and so the ASU organised rallies on 10 June 2010 and have again organised rallies on 15 December 2010.

We urge all supporters, members and employers in the sector to attend.

http://www.payup.org.au/

"Last Friday, Westfields opened up a brand new fantabulous shiny shopping mall in Pitt street, choc full of overpriced brand names and plastic things that look cool but serve no discernable purpose. With Australians in personal debt of $1.2 trillion, our earths resources in steady decline and our communities disintegrating with the soul destroying force of dog-eat-dog consumer culture, some of us may be asking.. why the fck are... we building more shopping malls? And more to the point, why are we still celebrating their openings, as though it were something wonderful?!

For those of us who do ask that question, it's time to step up and expose the shitty world of shopping for what it really is.....

The conscious creation of a zombie nation!!!!

Join us to stick it to a system that is fundamentally screwed, have a heap of fun, be a bit ridiculous and hopefully make someone think. Come join in the Consumerism Creates Clones spending season zombie march this Christmas. Quick. Before they build another Westfield.

All you need are some shopping bags (you know, those designer ones, the fancy ones that say 'i've been shopping') to hang on your outstretched Zombie arms, and makeup if you fancy. We'll march through all the best CBD shopping spots in peak time, moaning 'stuff', and go shopping in the new shiny Westfield where surely our Consumer Zombie hunger for stuff will be fulfilled.

Tell everyone!

culture jam club

http://www.facebook.com/#!/event.php?eid=130589016996298

Come to the monthly Workers Solidarity Network (WSN) meeting. Discuss ideas and actions around building networks of rank and file militants and community allies. The aim of which is creating genuine democratic control of our workplaces, outside of hierarchical business/corporate and union controls.

Screening of "One Night in Sofia", documentary about Jock Palfreeman, anti-fascist from Australia imprisoned in Bulgaria.

Wednesday 8pm 16/6/2010 at Black Rose 22 Enmore rd Newtown.

- Anarchists and Anti-authoritarians in Solidarity

SOLIDARITY WITH JOCK PALFREEMAN

Jock Palfreeman is a 23 year old antifascist from Australian currently in prison in Sofia, Bulgaria. He is accused of murder and attempted murder, following an encounter with a group of 16 far-right football hooligans. After 2 years of trial he was sentenced in December 2009 to 20 years imprisonment.

In December 2007, Jock witnessed a gang of fascist football hooligans attacking two Roma men in Bulgaria’s capital, Sofia. Jock went to the aid of the men, putting himself in the middle of the attack. The Roma were able to escape, but the gang then turned on Jock. The fascists kicked and punched Jock, and then started collecting pieces of broken concrete and throwing them at his head. Jock was alone, and forced to defend himself against the gang of 16 drunken, violent fascists. As a result, one fascist (Andrei Monov) was killed and another (Anton Zahariev) injured. Monov’s father, Dr Hristo Monov, is a prominent Bulgarian doctor, with ties to the government and contacts in the legal system.

Jock has been in prison for two years. Police have beaten and threatened to kill him, and have openly lied about his case in court. Much of the evidence that supports Jock’s version of events has been destroyed or has gone missing. For example, a CCTV video tape which showed the brutal attack on Jock has been “lost” by police and then been retrieved, only to mysteriously explode — again while in police custody. The Bulgarian media has labeled Jock a murderer and a hooligan, and has consistently and systematically published lies and distortions about Jock and his case. The court has been repeatedly delayed due to witnesses and court officials failing to turn up.

Attacks against Roma in Bulgaria have spiked in recent years, and the far right has declared that the eradication of Roma from their territories is of utmost political importance. Their anti-Roma campaigns include both propaganda and violence. In February 2009, local fascists organised a rally in Sofia, demanding that Jock be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
We denounce the despicable conditions Jock has been forced to endure, and without hesitation raise our voices in a firm declaration of solidarity. Jock has dedicated his life to fighting against fascism, and is now facing 20 years in a Bulgarian jail because he chose to try to stop a fascist attack.

Of course we expect nothing else from the so called “Justice System”; the laws, the judiciary, the police, the prosecutors and all the various mechanisms and institutions which serve the interests of capital and the state. We are not interested in the construction of “innocent” and “guilty” by civic legality and all its lackeys; those who continually attempt to marginalise and criminalise comrades who with dignity fight for freedom and defend the persecuted.

Like every captive of the state, Jock is not alone. Our acts of solidarity for each other turn out to be acts for all. They affect all the exploited, inside and outside the prisons of capital in our common need to throw down the walls of oppression and misery everywhere, we know true “justice” will not exist until the destruction of all prisons and the culture that creates them.

For further information about Jock's case see www.freejock.net

NO ONE HOSTAGE IN THE HANDS OF THE STATE, FIRE TO THE PRISONS

NO COMPLACENCY AGAINST FASCISM

IMMEDIATE FREEDOM TO ANTIFASCIST JOCK PALFREEMAN

-anarchists and antiauthoritarians

Construction worker from South Australia facing six months in jail. He has been charged with not attending an interview with the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC). Ark was working on the Flinders University site in Adelaide. Conditions were so bad that workers drew up a petition calling for safety improvements, on a handtowel. One by one workers from the site were called before the ABCC.

The penalties for those who don’t cooperate with ABCC investigations are frightening - fines of up to $22,000 for things like stopping work to make sure workers are safe and jail for up to 6 months if you don’t answer their questions.

His next court dates are 15, 16, and 18 June. Nationwide demonstrations planned.

Initiative of anarchists and antiauthoritarians for information, discussion, and coordination of actions in solidarity.

NEW TIME - 6pm TUES 8th June

Jura is hosting a special talk on "Anarchist workplace organising in Aotearoa New Zealand".
Simon is a unionist and anarchist organiser from across the
Tasman. He will talk about his experiences in a number of successful
worker-run organising campaigns:
- Supersize My Pay youth rates campaign
- Warehouse - organising a retail chain for the first time in 20 years
- Pak n Save - organising workers in a company owned by a right wing libertarian think tank
Discussion will follow around the questions of being an anarchist and
an organiser; organising with, without and despite trade unions; and
how will workers build a revolutionary movement to save the planet.
> Anarchist workplace organising in Aotearoa New Zealand, talk and discussion, 6pm, Thurs 29th April at Jura.