The Sound of Solidarity

In the wake of the Women's World Cup and the Matildas' success, Lucy Honan looks at how sexism, nationalism and corporate profit distort sport.

Adam Adelpour outlines the key contributions made by Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky to workers' revolution and, after the rise of Stalinism, to keeping alive the flame of revolution from below.

Phil Griffiths challenges the enduring myth that the White Australia policy was the creation of the Australian working class. This talk was delivered as the Brisbane Labour History Society's Alex Macdonald Memorial Lecture 2023.
Footnote from the author: In the lecture itself, and the original version of this text, I failed to acknowledge the important contribution Verity Burgmann made towards understanding the centrality of the ruling class in racial exclusion and creating the White Australia policy.

Ben Abbatangelo is a Gunaikurnai and Wotjobaluk writer and journalist who has written for The Saturday Paper, The Guardian and IndigenousX, and also appeared recently on ABC’s Q&A. He spoke to Paddy Gibson about his thoughts on the Voice to Parliament.

War is grounded in capitalist competition, argues Jason Wong. And it can be stopped through workers' revolution.

Hall Greenland (Greens founder and anti-Vietnam war activist) and Ian Rintoul (anti-Vietnam war activist in Brisbane and Solidarity) discuss how grassroots activism and mass protest helped stop the Vietnam War. The height of the movement in Australia was the mass Moratorium marches, which involved tens of thousands of workers striking to attend on a weekday. Learning from these struggles can help us build a new anti-war movement today against AUKUS and nuclear submarines.

Ian Brown (Gomeroi activist) and Paddy Gibson (Solidarity) discuss why the Voice to Parliament won't bring change and why Indigenous people and anti-racists need to look to mass struggle on the streets.

Jean Parker discusses the weaknesses of the Albanese Labor government and compares it with previous Labor governments, arguing that Labor has always put the interests of business ahead of those of its working class supporters.

As the horrific war in Ukraine grinds on, Adam Adelpour discusses how the left should respond.

Do members of a band need to be politically in harmony? Can heavy metal, hip hop, or house give us hope? How much stock should we put in Woodstock? What are the politics of Oakland, California, the birthplace of the Black Panthers and once-haven for Black people escaping the Jim Crow South, where over 5000 people were recorded as homeless in 2022?
Our guest, Jason Myles, gives us his perspectives on these questions in our third music and politics episode. Jason is the host of This Is Revolution Podcast, columnist for Sublation Magazine and a member of the Oakland-based band Bitter Lake. 
Music credits:
Bitter Lake, "Samba Del Diablo"
Bitter Lake, "Duality"
https://bitterlakeoakland.bandcamp.com/music 
This is Revolution Podcast (on YouTube):
https://www.youtube.com/@THISISREVOLUTIONpodcast/ 
Jason's columns in Sublation Magazine:
https://www.sublationmag.com/writers/jason-myles

We are getting closer to climate tipping points, with the danger of global heating becoming a runaway catastrophe. Chris Breen looks at how the crisis is unfolding and argues that solutions cannot be found so long as society is run for profit. He argues that workers' struggle is key to overcoming the stranglehold of fossil fuel capitalism.

David Brophy (author of the book China Panic) and Phil Griffiths (Solidarity) discuss how our rulers are preparing for a possible war with China, why tensions are rising and how workers and students can organise against racism and war.

Workers find themselves fighting the boss with one hand behind their backs, thanks to anti-union laws that restrict the right to strike. Erima Dall (MUA activist) and Sophie Cotton (NTEU branch committee, Sydney Uni) discuss how we find ourselves in this situation and how workers can escape the legal straitjacket.

In the second episode of our "music and politics" miniseries, Tami Gadir talks to John Street, Emeritus Professor of Politics at the University of East Anglia (UK), about his AHRC project "Our subversive voice: the history and politics of the English protest song". After discussing this 400-year history, John also addresses to what extent culture has political utility, and whether the cultural turn was a reasonable or reactionary response to the as-yet-unfulfilled promise of revolution.

We talk with Australian writer Antony Loewenstein about his latest book, The Palestine Laboratory, which describes how Israel uses weapons, drones and espionage systems against the Palestinians and then sells them as "battle tested" to reactionary regimes around the world for use on their populations.

Putin is a brutal autocrat whose invasion of Ukraine is to be condemned. We're told he's all-powerful and has the backing of the Russian people. But his rule rests on much shakier foundations and opposition to the war continues to bubble away beneath the surface of Russian society. This talk by David Glanz looks at how Putin came to power, his agenda in Ukraine and the potential for revolt against him and his crony capitalism.

The far right have been campaigning against drag queen story time events, cashing in on anti-trans and homophobic ideas. They have forced events that are valued by children, their parents and others to be cancelled or pushed online. This bigotry has to be stopped. We talk first with Dean Arcuri, a cabaret comedian, entertainer and MC, who also performs as his queerer alter ego, Frock Hudson, including at story times. Our second guest is researcher and Solidarity member, Geraldine Fela.

In the pilot episode of our "music and politics" miniseries, we talk to Dr Tami Gadir, Lecturer in Music Industry in the School of Media and Communication at RMIT University. We ask Tami about her new book, Dance music: a feminist account of an ordinary culture (Bloomsbury Academic, 2023), and through this discussion, introduce some of the bigger questions about music, politics and society.
 
Music credit: Mike Callander, "Go Mental." https://www.watartists.com/mike-callander. 

Solidarity editor James Supple looks at the growing economic problems facing capitalism in the wake of the COVID pandemic and argues that workers should refuse to pay the price for a system running into crisis.

The Spanish revolution was one of the great working class uprisings. Allied with the poor peasants, the workers had a chance to not just beat back fascism but to overthrow capitalism, too. The anarchists had the support of most workers, especially in the industrial city of Barcelona. But they failed to grasp the opportunity that the crisis offered and the revolution went down to defeat. David Glanz explains why.