---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 30 Apr 2001 21:52:54 +1000
From: Lev Lafayette <lev@student.unimelb.edu.au>
Newsgroups: aus.culture.gothic
Subject: Vale Joe Spiteri

Presentation to the 'No Gods, No Masters', Melbourne Anarchist and Autonomist Conference "Lenin on Trial" session, held at the University of Melbourne, April 29, 2001

Introduction

I will begin with thanking the organisers of the 'No Gods, No Masters' Melbourne Anarchist and Autonomist Conference for providing me this opportunity to defend Lenin's understanding and application of the Marxist theory of the state and socialist economy. I must also at this opportunity express my grave disappointment that members of the various political parties and movements that make up the 'red left', as the Conference organisers have described them, have not considered it worthwhile to defending Lenin in the face of very important criticisms. I do not see how ignoring this criticisms or the anarchist movement how differences between progressive forces can be resolved for the purpose of social change.

Presentation to the 'No Gods, No Masters', Melbourne Anarchist and Autonomist Conference "Lenin on Trial" session, held at the University of Melbourne, April 29, 2001

There can be no doubt it was an enthusiastic evening. On April 10, some two hundred people attended a meeting at Brunswick Town Hall launching an electoral alliance of the radical left calling itself "Socialist Alliance". Consisting of the Democratic Socialist Party, the International Socialist Organisation, Socialist Alternative, Workers Power, Workers Liberty, Workers League, the Freedom Socialist Party, Socialist Democracy, and the Worker-Communist Party of Iraq (in exile), the alliance is being heralded as having "enormous potential", "huge opportunities" and so forth.

From: Lev Lafayette
Newsgroups: aus.politics
Subject: How Howard Can Win The Federal Election
Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2001 10:39:02 +1100
Organization: The University of Melbourne
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Introduction

The following is a critical review of the ALP Draft National Platform (2000). By "critical" the same meaning is used as that used by "critical theory". It is not to be equated with a negative review, but rather as critique to test the sincerity of principles to practices. Aspects of the Draft Platform are thus evaluated in an oppositional, yet positive manner; where such an assessment is given it is also with constructive alternatives. Further, by "critical" this review also seeks to highlight those aspects of the Platform, which directly relate to the organising principles of the Party rather than those that are temporary or incidental.

The relationship between punk fashion and anarchism poses some difficulty. It is a second-order symbol which requires interpretation upon interpretation. It is contextually specific. In other circumstances, the fashion of punk could quite easily represent the politics of what Marx would call the "lumpen-proletariat" (ie., fascism), or indeed - particularly in the gothic-punk style, the disenfranchised aristocracy.

Housing crisis week in Melbourne

By Lev Lafayette

MELBOURNE — Victorian community organisations and individuals have formed People for Public Housing to oppose federal and state government changes to the public housing system. The organisation will run a week-long campaign here in the first week in September, culminating in a rally in the Bourke Street Mall.

Key changes being introduced include rent increases, loss of secure tenure, stricter eligibility criteria and targeted allocations.

Pauline Hanson's One Nation: Speech given at Socialist Alternative function, July 1997

Comrades,

My thanks to Socialist Alternative for organising tonights forum and to the Lincoln Hotel for providing the venue.