Some insignificant chef said the ‘C’ word on free to air TV and Australians couldn’t stop talking about it.  It seems we have finally come of age and nothing can shock us anymore.  Well I’m afraid there is one taboo nobody is willing to challenge.  I’m not talking about the vagina and external female genitalia, I’m talking about a ‘C’ word that nobody in Australia is willing to say.

Capitalism is the elephant in the room no one is willing to mention, let alone publicly acknowledge.  It seems no one is willing to utter the ‘C’ word in polite conversations about increased greenhouse emissions, the increasing gap between the rich and the poor, housing affordability, corporatisation, globalisation, inflation and increasing interest rates. 

We are happy to publicly bandy the ‘C’ word equating a contemptible person with female genitalia, but when it comes to mentioning the role an economic system based on the creation of profits, irrespective of the human and social costs has on human behaviour and the planet, no one but no one is willing to equate capitalism – the private ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange with the headlong rush into oblivion, poverty and dispossession we currently face. 

When you add the ‘C’ words – conspicuous consumption to capitalism – you begin to realise why no one is willing to use the ‘C’ word in polite conversation.  The role capitalism plays in our day to day lives needs to be both acknowledged and discussed.  While we refuse to discuss the profound effect the ‘C’ word has on our lives, we repeat the mistakes of the past waiting for the people who own the means of production, distribution and exchange to sell us the last train tickets to the hell they have created.

Publicly acknowledging the ‘C’ word is neither here or there, publicly acknowledging the other ‘C’ word calls into question the role capitalism has played in the creation of a society drowning in its own waste.  No wonder people are frightened of using the ‘C’ word. 

There is a new group of people who are being pushed to the margins and disadvantaged in Australia.  Those of us who choose not to embrace the joys of the World Wide Web are Australia’s new dispossessed and disadvantaged.  Australia’s major companies have embraced the internet with a passion because it cuts their costs and decreases their accountability to both the individual and the community. I understand the advantages of being internet savvy, but refuse to be manipulated by corporations who are forcing people to use the internet to conduct the most rudimentary tasks.

The problem is not just related to corporations, it is related to the simple task of applying for a job at a supermarket chain.  Applications by email only, no internet address - no job.  Want to become involved in a competition, you need to use the internet, no one else need apply.  You want to pay a bill, not happy only having virtual records, bad luck – paper trails no longer exit.  What is touted as a conservation matter (paperless society), is in fact a method by which corporations decrease their accountability to customers and clients.  It is one thing having a piece of paper in your hand, it is another having a virtual record.

Over 40% of Australians are not connected to the internet because they don’t want to complicate their lives with the new technology.  Even if we take out set up costs and ongoing running costs to do what we are happy doing without computers, there is the cost, the time needed to access the World Wide Web.  Access to the virtual world for routine, mundane tasks takes time. In a world where finding enough time to do what you have to do in life has become a major issue in people’s lives, many people do not want to spend time trying to access information that normally reaches them in the mail.

Even if you have the time, why should organisations like Telstra force people to access their bills on the internet?  Can they guarantee the security of people’s information?  Will they pass on any savings they have made?  I doubt it!  I, and many people like me, resent the fact that we no longer have the choice to decide whether we want to or not want to use the internet to carry out simple tasks that don’t need the World Wide Web. 

One in 100 US adults rots in US prisons today despite the rate of violent crime falling from 612 per 100,000 in 1987 to 464 per 100,000 people 20 years later in 2007.  The rate of imprisonment among black American men has rien to 1 in 15 and in the case of Hispanic men - the rate has risen to 1 in 34.  Whether the incarceration of 1 in 100 adults has decreased violent crime in the community is a matter of conjecture.  Over 2.3 million adults find themselves in jail for crimes that are in many cases directly related to poverty.  Even China with five times the population of the US has 1.5 million people in jail.

The drive to increase the prison population has more to do with lining the pockets of shareholders who own private prisons than it has to do with trying to decrease the crime rate in the US.  The privatisation of much of the US prison system has as much to do with increasing incarceration rates as attempts by government to lower the crime rate.  Private prisons are a very profitable industry that also provides much needed employment for many communities that have become part of the rust belt.

The corporatisation of US prison complexes has led to private corporations placing pressure on elected officials to pass legislation that makes incarceration mandatory for victimless crimes.  The effect of increasing prison populations is devastating on poor communities that find they are forced to rely on an inadequate welfare system while the major bread winner is in prison.

Just in case readers think this would never happen in Australia, indigenous prisoners make up 20% of the Australian prison population, although they only account for 3% of the general population.  Keeping prisons in public hands limits the influence the private sector has on prison numbers.  In a privately run for profit prison system, the more people that are incarcerated, the greater the profits that can be made from human misery.

It is not surprising to find that decreased violent crime rates do not result in a shrinking prison population, in a system that relies on increasing the prison population, to generate the ever increasing profits shareholders demand of privately owned corporations. 

Bangladesh seldom hits the headlines except in times of natural disasters.  125 million people living on a land mass double the size of Tasmania – (Tasmania has less than half a million people) – on the Bay of Bengal in Southern Asia, currently the country is going through tumultuous political and climate changes.  

The province of East Pakistan carved out from India during the 1947 political break up of the Indian sub-continent, always had an uneasy association with West Pakistan.  Riots engulfed the new province in 1952 when the government in the West attempted to impose Urdu as the national language on a people whose Bengali culture and language is as important to them as their religion – Islam.  In 1971, the Eastern province of Pakistan successfully seceded after a particularly brutal secessionist war which resulted in tens of thousands of casualties.

The leaders of the secession movement and their relatives have dominated political affairs since 1971.  Two political parties – one led by the daughter of a prominent independence leader and the other by the wife of another prominent independence leader – have through the parliamentary process, shared parliamentary power in a succession of governments where both Opposition and government supporters have clashed regularly in the streets.  Accusations of corruption have dogged successive governments and in a country with few natural resources have pauperised successive generations.

All this changed last year when the President with the backing of the military, abolished Parliament, appointed an interim civilian administration, and set in train a sequence of events which has resulted in the jailing of the Prime Minister, the Opposition leader and 18 Cabinet Ministers for corruption.  Given the task of preparing the country for free and fair parliamentary elections in December, a new sense of optimism has swept a country that is at the frontline of the struggle against climate change.  

Living on the Bay of Bengal in a very fertile delta, 125 million people face the twin problems of rising sea levels, increasingly powerful monsoons (one in the 1970’s resulted in the deaths of over 500,000 people) and regular floods due to the deforestation of the Himalayas.

While Pakistan continues to suffer as a result of a US backed military dictatorship that has called elections as a consequence of the strength of local resistance, the Bangladeshi military has to date played a behind the scenes roll.  Whether free and fair parliamentary elections are held in December, is another matter. 

Like in Russia, it is very easy for the ruling party or the interim administration in Bangladesh to set electoral rules that limit who can or cannot stand for election, setting in train a sequence of events that will lead to continuing political violence in a country that has had to deal with more than its fair share of misfortunes.

We need to actively struggle against these stereotypes by confronting them head on. Every time you publicly articulate you are an anarchist, you shatter people’s preconceived ideas of what an anarchist is or isn’t. It’s very easy to hold onto stereotypes if you have never had contact with the people who are being stereotyped. It’s another matter when you are confronted with people who do not fit the stereotypes that are used to marginalise small groups and their ideas.

Every time you tell somebody you are an anarchist, you directly challenge their stereotypes - the more ordinary you are, the greater the challenge. Telling people you are an anarchist is a revolutionary act because it challenges deeply held public assumptions of what anarchism is and isn’t. Those who challenge the assumptions by publicly coming out, do more to promote anarchism than all the websites in the world. Coming out of the closet is an effective way to challenge dominant ideology and more importantly provide realistic alternatives to what is happening in society.

Those who accept society’s definition of anarchism as chaos, and adopt the symbols of anarchism as symbols of chaos, need to be publicly challenged. We have the right to define and publicly defend who we are and what we want. By vacating the public arena by refusing to publicly acknowledge our anarchism, plays directly into the hands of those sections of society that exercise power.

Are You Prepared To Enlist Now?

Are You Prepared To Enlist Later On?

If Not, Why Not?

The labour movement was in uproar at the idea of conscription. War profiteering had forced the Melbourne wharfies, the Broken Hill miners and the Illawarra coal miners to go on strike to keep their wages abreast with inflation. The I.W.W. and the Australian Socialist movement found themselves at the forefront of a movement against conscription that included the Catholic Church led by Archbishop Mannix of Melbourne, the labour movement and a growing woman’s movement.

In January 1916, Billy Hughes, on his way to an Imperial War Cabinet meeting in London sensing that support for the war was waning among Australian workers, turned his attention to the I.W.W. trying to criminalise their activities in the eyes of their fellow workers. He denounced the Wobblies who “posing as lovers of liberty, do what they can, to prevent men from joining the expeditionary forces”. He stated: - “It’s no use treating these people like a tame cat….. They must be attacked with the ferocity of a Bengal tiger”.

Hughes’ trip to England was a disaster; the trade union movement’s opposition to conscription hardened while he was overseas. Talk of a general strike was in the air; the National Trade Union Congress which was held while he was away, only narrowly defeated the call for a national strike to end the threat of conscription. The I.W.W. continued to curry favour among trade unionists, who began to see Australia’s involvement in what was essentially a trade war as a costly mistake they wanted nothing to do with.

When the Prime Minister returned to Australia at the end of July 1916, the battle on the Somme was at its height, victory was in the balance. In response to the threat that they could lose the war, the British government introduced conscription to bolster the supply of men they could send to the European killing fields. Hughes was determined to do the same. Concerned about the possibility of a general strike if conscription was introduced and the opposition of most of the labour movement, Cabinet refused to roll over and did not support Hughes’ call to introduce conscription. Faced with determined Cabinet opposition, Hughes won a narrow Cabinet vote that called for a referendum to be called on the question of conscription.

In August 1916, the Conscription Referendum Act was passed by Parliament. The scene was now set for one of the most divisive moments in Australian history.

NEXT WEEK: ‘The 1916 Referendum’

Successive Queensland governments, keen for the colonisation process to run smoothly, so Europeans could access the mineral and pastoral riches of the land free from the threat of the local indigenous inhabitants fighting back, relied on the deployment of Native Police under the command of white officers. The Queensland Native Police were expected to clear out ‘hostile’ blacks who protested about their forced removal from lands they had in some cases continuously inhabited for over 40,000 years. What methods were used to do the job was left up to the white supervisors of the Native Police. By the mid 1880’s, a small number of influential Europeans were beginning to ask questions about the policies employed by the Queensland government to deal with the ‘Aboriginal problem’. Native Police had continuously been used all over Australia to do the colonisers dirty work for them, under the direct control of white officers, poorly trained Aboriginal people, who had survived previous massacres, were used to remove troublesome Aborigines. No questions were normally asked about what was done and how it was done.

The ‘Irvinebank Massacre’ was different because both Sub-Inspector Nichols of the Queensland Native Police and 4 Native Police were charged with serious offences as a result of the murder of 4 Aborigines from the Bar Barrum Tribal group who continue to live in the area today. Although Nichols nor the native troopers were found guilty of murder (the native troopers’ case was dismissed after they had spent a year in jail awaiting trial), the fact that they were brought to trial, shines a spotlight on the brutal practices that were used to remove Aboriginal people that had been supported by Queensland governments for over six decades.

This interesting little pamphlet tells a story that is unfortunately too familiar in the history of the colonisation of Australia. Although I have a few issues with the way the material is presented to the reader, this pamphlet deserves more public recognition than it currently has generated. Unfortunately the pamphlet doesn’t have any contact details recorded on it.

Try Irvinebank Louden House Museum in Nth Queensland if you’d like to get hold of your own copy of the pamphlet, or try your local library they may have a copy.

THANKS TO PETER AND MARGARET FOR PROVIDING ME WITH MATERIAL AND THE COPY TO REVIEW.

Bare midriffs have been a popular fashion statement among Australian women over the past 2 years. As women, like men, come in all shapes and sizes, larger women who have bare midriffs tend to have rolls of fat hanging over their trousers or skirt. ‘Muffin top’ is an imaginative pleasant way of describing this phenomenon.

Now let’s get back to what we were doing. I have just closed the dictionary, closed my eyes and have just opened it. My eyes are still closed; I am running my finger down the page, when I suddenly stop. Page 655 my finger has stopped on the word ‘keelhaul’. I remember as a child or a teenager thinking that you would have to know how to hold your breath if some dastardly pirate ‘keelhauled’ you. Just in case you don’t know what the term means ‘keelhauling’ brings tears to grown men’s eyes. If you did the wrong thing on ship, you could be put in the hole, sent up the mast, flogged, put on a diet of bread and water or you could be ‘keelhauled’. ‘keelhauling’ was one step away from being hung from the main yard.

Usually the crew were made to watch the punishment; it’s amazing how thoughts of rebellion or even insubordination disappear when you watch your fellow sailors being tied up and then hauled under the keel of the ship. It is hard holding your breath when your body is being torn apart by the barnacles on the bottom of the ship. If the sharks didn’t get you, it is more than likely you would bleed to death once you were dragged back on board.

This is fun, let’s try another word. Eyes closed, surprise, surprise page 885 – the word for the moment ‘passage’. This is serious; I don’t want any front or back ‘passage’ jokes. This isn’t an X-rated publication. I can’t believe it, the dictionary lists 14, yes 14 different meanings for ‘passage’. You guessed it, Nos.14 – ‘an evacuation of the bowels’. Enough no more jokes.

Let’s try another page, page 194 – ‘cedar’ - no double meaning here. Eat your heart out carry on crew. Hopefully you get the joke, if you don’t – bad luck. I think I am addicted to words – more, more, more page 653 - ‘kapok’, page 1147 – ‘sludge’. You’re right I need help!!!

The problem of access to public transport needs to be addressed in a much more imaginable manner than trying to find a ticketing system that works. Free public transport rewards those people who are willing to use the network and transfers the cost to run the system from commuters to the community as a whole. The costs of a public transport system, that commuters do not have to pay to use, should be met by the whole community because the increased patronage that would occur as a result of free public transport benefits everybody.

The cost to the community could be met through the imposition of a series of levies. A 10% surcharge could be applied to all rateable properties in the Melbourne metropolitan region. A levy could be imposed on all motor vehicles registered in the State. A 10% surcharge could be added to payroll tax and workers compensate premiums. A State Departure tax could be levied at Melbourne Airport to ensure that tourists, as well as residents, meet the cost of both running and expanding what most people agree is an inadequate public transport network.

Transferring the cost of public transport to the community, would encourage people to use the system as they would have prepaid for the privilege of using the network.

A win, win situation in anybody’s eyes.

ARIVISTA ANARCHIA No.332, FEB 2008, Editrice A, C.P.17120, 20170 Milano, ITALY,
Tel : 022896627
Fax : 0228001271
Email : arivista@tin.it
Web : www.anarca-bolo.ch/a-rivista

CNT No.342 FEB 08, Organo de la Conf Nac del Trabajo, Apdo de Correos 385 C.P. 10080, SPAIN.
Tel:Fax: 927240 523 913690838
Web : www.periodicocnt.org

ROJO Y NEGRO No.210, FEB ’08, Publicacion Mensual Anarcho Syndicalist, Sgunto 15, 1, SPAIN,
Tel: 914470572
Web : www.rojoynegro.info
Email : prensa@rojoynero.info

SICILIA LIBERTARIA No.270 FEB ’08, Via Galileo Galilei, 45-97100 Ragusa, Sicily, ITALY.
Email : info@sicilialibertaria.it

OPERAI CONTRO Vol 24 No127 JAN 08, Giornale per la Critica, La Lotta, Via Folck, 44-20099, Seato S. Giovanni (MI), ITALY
Web : www.asloperaicontro.org

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Write to:

AKIN SARI, c/- Port Phillip Prison,
P.O. BOX 376, Laverton 3080,
Melbourne, Victoria, AUSTRALIA

Akin Sari pleaded guilty to a number of charges stemming from the G20 protests in Melbourne in Nov 2006. He was arrested in Sydney on the 6th Sept 2007 for breaching his bail conditions. He appeared in the Victorian County Court on the 4th February 2008 for a presentence hearing. Nearly 6 months after he was incarcerated, he is still waiting to find out how much more time he will have to spend in jail. Keep his spirits up, write to him today!

“We swear by the Southern Cross to stand truly by each other & fight to defend our rights & liberties”

NOMINATION CLOSE – 31st OCTOBER 2008

Send in one nomination or as many as you like. Send us the following information:

• The name of the person nominated
  
  
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“SEDITION – Conduct or speech inciting to rebellion”

SIGN THE SEDITION CHARTER ONLINE - www.seditioncharter.org

If you’re computer literate and many of us are not, write to us for a copy of the Sedition Charter, at :

P.O. BOX 5035,
ALPHINGTON 3078,
MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA

Terrible things happen when good people do nothing. Openly defy this government’s attempts to muzzle and intimidate opposition to their neo conservative authoritarian agenda – SIGN the ‘Sedition Charter’ TODAY!

THE POWER OF RECALL – Electors having the constitutional right to recall parliamentary representatives in between elections

CITIZENS INITIATED REFERENDUMS – The people having the power to initiate constitutional change through referendums

DIRECT DEMOCRACY – Electing delegates with limited mandates, to co-ordinate decisions that have been made by the people, not electing representatives to make decisions for us.

(We Currently Have 121 Paid Up Members)

DIRECT DEMOCRACY NOT PARLIAMENTARY RULE - www.rulebythepeople.org

An anarchist analysis of local, national & international events. Tune into your local community radio station to listen to the Anarchist World This Week. If they don’t broadcast it, ask them why not! If they’re one of the 150 community radio stations around Australia that are affiliated to the National Community Radio Satellite, they are able to broadcast the Anarchist World This Week.

2BAY, 2BBB, 2BLU, 2DRY, 2HOT, 2OCB, 2WOW, 2XX, 3CH, 3CR, 36CR, 3MGB, 3REG, 4NAG, 4RRR, 5BBB, 5RRR, 6YCR

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‘LIFE WASN’T MEANT TO BE EASY’

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The Fed govt's chief advisor on climate change says the govt needs to act urgently to cut greenhouse gas emissions, b/c the global climate is changing faster than expected. The interim report by Prof Ross Garnaut said "business as usual is carrying the world towards high risks of dangerous climate change faster than seemed to be the case a short while ago. The need for an effective policy response is more urgent than we thought." Aust would be "1 of the most badly damaged of the developed countries if there’s no effective mitigation". Prof Garnaut's report said the govt should be ready to reduce greenhouse emissions further than its current policy. Climate Change Min Penny Wong said "we welcome Professor Garnaut's input", but added "of course we will also be looking at other inputs, such as modelling from the Aust Treasury." (The Age)

Rising rents are forcing thousands of Austs to skip meals & deny their kids school excursions, acc to new research. Research by the Aust Housing & Urban Research Institute, based on surveys and interviews with 1400 renter households & 400 recent home purchasers, found 26% of low-income renters surveyed sometimes go without food & 42% can't afford school excursions. 47% said, even with improved income, rents would still be too high A separate study headed by housing analyst Judith Yates of Sydney Uni, projects over the next 40yrs the number of households will increase by 50%, but the number of renters will almost double. "In the future, as in the past, the majority of Austs will have affordable, secure housing over their lives," the study said. "(But) it will be increasingly difficult for low & moderate-income households who’ve deferred home purchase to become home owners. "The number of lower-income households in housing stress in the private rental market is expected to increase by 120%." B/w 1981 & 2006, the proportion of householders aged 35 to 44 who don’t own their home has risen from 25% to 32%. The proportion aged 25 to 34 who are renting has risen from 39% to 49%. (The Age)

Austs are spending more time working & less time sleeping, exercising & eating, acc to the Bureau of Stat. The Bureau's recently released 06 Time Use survey showed men spend an average of nearly 32hrs/wk at paid work, up 5% compared to 97, while women spend 16hrs 27min, up 7%. Women are doing more unpaid work than men, with 36hrs/wk compared to 20hrs. Aust have lost 1hr45min of weekly leisure time, down to an average of 29hrs/wk. The average Aust has lost 5 min from their daily sleep time in the past decade, down to 8hrs & 31min a night. (Herald-Sun)

QUOTE OF THE MOMENT: - "Music has been used in US military prisons & on bases to induce sleep deprivation, 'prolong capture shock,' disorient detainees during interrogations - & also drown out screams." - Mother Jones magazine.

QUOTE OF THE MOMENT: -"Personal conflicts among husbands, wives & children will diminish when the unjust measurement of human worth on the scale of dollars is eliminated." –M.L. King.