Adam Michnik, co-founder of the Polish trade union Solidarnosc, looks back on its founding 25 years ago, and forward to today's turmoiled times In search of lost sense: Dad, please don't beat me
Eye on Politics & Law Lords: Why the states matter in industrial relations
Since the federal election of 2004, and particularly since the Coalition gained outright control of the Senate from July this year, industrial relations policy has been centre stage.
The key shift is the transition of ideology and practice from traditional liberalism—where the competing objectives of employers and employees, manifested through trade unions and other third parties, are both legitimate—to ‘neo-liberalism’—where, in the name of market efficiency, the objectives of management are paramount, with little or no room for other interests.
• The States: Difference And Fragmentation [Webdiary: Mark just like Darren Rowse is well aware that lists are popular O’nya Mark ;-) Ten reasons why young idealistic people should forget about organised politics ; Mark Latham followed his controversial book with a provocative lecture Organised politics is bad for your ideals, Latham tells students ; Slavoj Zizek: Against Human Rights (New Left Review 34, July-Augus ]
• · What makes people more democratic, anyway? ; Police could lock down an entire suburb and carry out unfettered searches on homes, vehicles and individual Labor terrorism laws give police free hand
• · · It is a highly addictive drug, but governments everywhere encourage its use Gerin oil (or Geriniol to give it its scientific name) is a powerful drug which acts directly on the central nervous system to produce a range of characteristic symptoms, often of an antisocial or self- damaging nature Opiate of the masses ; In the Heart of Europe: Social Models and Geopolitics
• · · · Those who live in their own homes emerge as winners from the tangled web of taxes and concessions imposed on properties, a study says. Such people have an overall subsidy of $2000 a year. There's an inequality or tax concession here: on exactly the same property, one landlord's paying tax and one isn't Home owners net $2000 a year bonus ; Cash transfers, with strings attached, are a better way of helping the poor than many previous social programmes New thinking about an old problem
• · · · · Social programmes that are good for democracy as well as for the fight against poverty Not always with us ; Mike Berry summarises the housing affordability picture and the forces driving the recent housing boom Show me the money: financing more affordable housing
• · · · · · Rachel Gibson from the ACSPRI Centre for Social Research and Ian McAllister frm the Political Science Program show that web campaigning is associated primarily with the political attitudes and outlook of candidates (being left-wing and young) rather than the amount of campaign resources available. Does cyber campaigning win votes? Online communication in the 2004 Australian election ; It was a collision of cultures made for a novel by Tom Wolfe, who as it happened was there. On Saturday, if you got out of the Washington Metro at the Smithsonian stop, cheery volunteers pointed the crowd in opposite directions. "The book festival is to your left and the march is to your right," the volunteers chanted. Coverage in the NYT focuses on which authors attended a White House breakfast and which ones declined for political reasons On the Mall, 2 Events Speak Volumes