Omar Hassan is the editor of the Marxist Left Review.
It’s not often that the proceedings of a local council meeting make national headlines. But when more than 100 far-right activists descended on a recent meeting of the Monash City Council, it was right to pay attention.
It’s been more than a year since Russia invaded Ukraine, and the results have been devastating. A 21 February UN Human Rights Office report estimates that at least 8,101 civilians have been killed, 14 million have been forced to abandon their homes, and 18 million are in “dire need of humanitarian assistance”. There are no accurate figures for the number of casualties among soldiers, but estimates are well over 100,000 for each side.
For centuries, wars have been fought to gain control over vital resources like gunpowder, saltpetre, coal and oil. Possessing these kinds of strategic commodities gives competing states industrial and military advantages over their rivals. The coming conflict between the US and China won’t be decided by oil, gas, finance or even nuclear weapons. Instead, the winner will be the country that controls one essential resource: advanced microchips.
Socialist Alternative is the largest revolutionary group in Australia since the 1920s. We are the only socialist group with a national presence and an expanding membership. Founded by a few dozen people based overwhelmingly in Melbourne in the mid-1990s, the organisation has grown to nearly 500 activists spread across the country. While this is nowhere near what we ultimately need, it’s an important achievement in a context where the broader left has disintegrated.
Despite decades of climate research, public activism and international conferences, fossil fuels are back in vogue. Big producers are making astronomical sums of money, their share prices are going up, and new investors are pouring in. The result is that the much-vaunted global transition to renewables is, yet again, on hold.
The investigation into the storming of the US Congress in January last year has proven beyond doubt that Trump was seriously attempting a “soft” coup. Until recently, the media coverage have largely focused on the actions of a motley crew of conspiracists, used-car salesmen and fascists who led the events of 6 January. While undeniably despicable and deserving of serious contestation by the left, these forces are totally marginal to politics in the United States.