The tagline of this piece (‘Communism is for moms or it’s nothing’) was what initially drew me in, but it ended up being a great read on mutual aid, militant care, mothering, and wombats. (Speaking of wildlife, I would also like to draw attention to this outrage.)
I enjoyed this piece in Overland about the Clash’s history of supporting Aboriginal rights struggles in Australia, particularly through their involvement with Gary Foley during the 1980s. (The comments are also really worth reading!)
Over the course of what is becoming a far too lengthy doorknocking career, I’ve spent a fair bit of time talking to people about public ownership, and it’s striking that most people don’t realise privatisation can be reversed. The fact that governments can and do take private services back into the public sector is “the biggest open secret in Australian public policy”, as Osmond Chiu writes in this informative piece. One to keep in your back pocket for your next argument with a centrist relative.
HIghly recommend this Tribune interview with journalist Gary Younge, on Black Lives Matter, race and class in Britain, COVID-19, and the role of the black bourgeoisie.
“The challenge for the Left comes in understanding things other than class as being material. Some seem to link anything belonging broadly to ‘identity’ with ‘feelings’ when they do have material effects. If you’re a woman, you earn less than a man; if you’re Pakistani or Bangladeshi, you’re fifteen times more likely to live in overcrowded housing; if you’re black, you’re four times more likely to die of Covid-19. All of these things are material.”
Speaking of materiality, a great piece on the politics of space was recently published right here on Flood Media! Andy Paine writes compellingly on the refugee solidarity occupation at Kangaroo Point in Brisbane, and what this experience might suggest about the value and opportunities of (re)claiming physical space.
Finally, if you were hoping that today you could spend twenty to thirty minutes learning about the history of tea production and how it contributed to the development of regionally-specific capitalisms in China and India - have I got the article for you. I love random historical deep-dives and this does not disappoint.