Liam Ward argues the issue of asylum seekers cuts right to the heart of everything that’s rotten and inhumane about capitalism – its racism, its hypocrisy, its brutality and its utter contempt for humanity.

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After a 200,000 strong march in Washington, the struggle for equal rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people is gaining momentum. In the United States it is being compared with the Black civil rights movement of the 1950s and 60s. In Australia, the campaign against one of the few remaining forms of institutionalised discrimination - the prohibition on same-sex marriage - has taken more modest, but still encouraging steps.

Young and old, gay and straight, people from across the United States descended on Washington, DC, to demand full equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people on October 11.

Recent events at Glen Waverley Secondary College highlight the ongoing reality of LGBTI oppression today.

In July, Aboriginal people walked off the government-controlled community of Ampilatwatja in the Northern Territory. Protesting against years of racism and government neglect, the people of Ampilatwatja (pronounced "umblud-witch") have established a permanent protest camp, vowing not to return to a life under government control.

In 1973, Henry Kissinger, the man responsible for carpet-bombing Vietnam and Cambodia, was awarded the Nobel peace prize. In 2009, another war criminal has been selected - Barack Obama. Compared with his predecessor, Obama is a more eloquent voice of empire, but the fundamentals - of warmongering without end - remain the same.

On Friday 16 October, Richard Downs and Harry Nelson addressed a packed public meeting of 240 people at the MAYSAR Aboriginal gym in Fitzroy, Melbourne. After the meeting Richard Downs spoke to Christine Brown from the Nunga Wangga show on Radio Adelaide, and Ford D from Socialist Alternative magazine.

Kevin Rudd knows where he stands when it comes to the lives of Tamils fleeing a genocidal government or keeping the votes of every last racist that he can.

In 1999, during mass demonstrations supporting independence for East Timor, Socialist Alternative argued against the popular demand that Australian troops be sent. We argued that this would give Australian governments a pretext for increasing military budgets and using force against other small nations in our region in the future. Now more evidence shows how right we were.

The fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 was followed by the overthrow or disintegration of all the Stalinist regimes of Eastern Europe. The demise of these totalitarian regimes was a step forward for humanity and one that any socialist should have unequivocally celebrated.

The Palestinian struggle is at a crucial juncture. Mahmoud Abbas's treasonous collaboration with Israel and the US to try to bury the UN Goldstone report, which raised the prospect of trials of Israeli leaders for war crimes committed during the January 2009 assault on Gaza, has unleashed an unprecedented barrage of condemnation throughout Palestinian society.

Libertarian convert to Bolshevism, agitator, novelist, journalist, poet, pamphleteer, artist and political writer: Victor Serge was a revolutionary par excellence.