A growing escalation in conflicts between garbage workers and local councils has perfectly captured the issue of casualisation in the workplace. In Brunswick, members of the Australian Services Union implemented a ban on street cleaning and litter pick up, which has seen rubbish build across the Moreland City Council area.

As a rural Australian and Communist I’m often irked when people, mostly politicians, claim without a hint of irony that Australia is the “Lucky Country”. Chest-thumping declarations that Australia is a technologically advanced and wealthy country are hard to swallow when I look around and see the dilapidated infrastructure the forgotten people of rural Australia put up with.

In a move that perfectly represents the commercialisation and manipulation of our history, the Australian War Memorial have revealed they are pursuing a new sponsorship deal with war profiteers and criminals, Lockheed Martin,  just in time for Anzac Day. The move was announced despite the AWM receiving over 300 letters from veterans and historians who objected to the disgraceful move, and criticised it for degrading the memories of the dead.

Despite your friendly neighbourhood cop or extreme situations in which we are grateful for police intervention, the institution itself must be treated as an organised enemy force. We can’t decide the police are good one day and bad the next based on individual actions. An analysis of their overall social purpose is needed, and such an analysis shows they are foot-soldiers protecting the capitalist class.