Wondering what anarchy is all about? An anarchist society is a voluntary non-hierarchical society which is based on the creation political and social structures which are based on equal decision making power where wealth is held in common and used for the common good. Very simple concepts. The people involved in the decision making the decision, where wealth is held in common and used for the common good. If you want to write to us, you can write to us a PO Box 20 Parkville 3052, you can download the weekly from anarchistmedia.org, you can ring us on (03) 8508 9856. You can join Direct Democracy Not Parliamentary Rule, look at their website, rulebythepeople.org, sign the Sedition Charter, seditioncharter.org, that’s right, there’s a lot of things you can do, and lots more things that you can do. Your imagination is the limit.

In today’s program, Mr. Ned Ludd will be coming in to talk matter technological, as it’s the first week of the month, and he comes in to talk about matter technological, and obviously once he’s finished speaking you will get a chance to speak to the great man himself. Now those of you who are writing to Akin Sari. Mr Akin Sari is a Turkish political refugee who is granted political asylum in this country by the Howard government, he was arrested during the G20 protests in Melbourne in 19th November last year. He was charged with a number of offences, he was released on bail, he failed to appear in a court hearing in August, an arrest warrant was issued for his arrest, he was arrested in Sydney on that warrant. Mr. Akin Sari will be spending a long time in jail waiting for a new bail hearing and it’s quite possible that he will not make bail. He is looking for people to write to him, keep his spirits up. If you want to write to Akin, it’s Mr Akin Sari c/o Melbourne Remand Centre PO Box 500 St Albans 3021, Melbourne Australia. And I’ll repeat most of those details at the end of the program.

What a week, what a week. We’ve The 3 stooges the last 24 hours, Mr Abbott, Mr Hocking and Mr Andrews. Yes, they’re wonderful, wonderful group of people the 3 stooges; you couldn’t get a better group of people, could you. We’ll talk about their diversionary tactics later on. But I’d like to start off discussing Mr John Howard’s new-found love for freedom, democracy and protestors. I do remember that during the G20 protests and at the APEC forum, he wasn’t very keen on protests, but it seems that he’s keen on them now. It is ironic, isn’t it, that this government Mr Howard, is a man who has one more to criminalise dissent in Australia than any other Prime Minister in Australia, possibility apart from Billy Hughes in WW1, and that was during a World War, he is so concerned about the Burmese people’s attempts to overthrow a odious military dictatorships by taking to the streets. It is quite ironic that he is very concerned about the fate of the protestors. Those Australians and those listeners who think I’m drawing a long bow, comparing John Howard’s watch as PM with the activities of the Burmese Military Junta, only have to look at the raft of legislation, passed by the Howard government, with the support of a pliant opposition, that have stripped Australians of fundamental rights and liberties that we have enjoyed for generations. In Australia today, you can be secretly arrested, imprisoned, and interrogated indefinitely, not because you are suspected of being involved in a crime, but because you inadvertently may have information that may assist the authorities in they investigations. And if you don’t believe me, ask Dr Haneef. 3 ministers of the Crown can, at any time, call out the Australian Defence Forces, because they believe that Commonwealth interests are under threat. Not because Commonwealth is under attack, but because they believe that Commonwealth interests are under threat, like they believe that Sudanese refugees are not the type of people for this country.

An Australia Defence Personal who are called out to carry out actions during this period are legally indemnified irrespective of who they mame, kill or the damage to private property they cause. I’m sure the Burmese government would approve of that little law, wouldn’t they? The Sedition laws in this country have been extended to prosecute people for what they think, not what they do or may plan to do. Another little law which I’m sure the Burmese government would love to follow. In Australia, it is illegal for workers to withdraw outside a designated bargaining period. Those who do so can be fined and jailed, yes, for the hideous crime of withdrawing your labour. And those community activists who support those who withdraw their labour, who take part in picket lines, can, from the 25th of September this year, be bankrupted. That’s right. Men and women working in the building industry have been specifically targeted and have lost legal protections that other Australians take for granted. You only have to pick up a newspaper, listen to a radio station, look at a televisions, to realise that dissent is viewed as a serious crime in this country. Especially if you, like the Burmese protestors, take to the streets. Australian security agencies have legal powers that the Burmese military junta would be proud of. Every legislative step exists in Australia’s legal code today to allow that Australian government to legally carry out the same actions against unarmed protestors that the Burmese military junta is carrying out in Burma today. And when I was listening to the Burmese representatives, the Burmese Prime Minister, talking in the United Nations, justifying the Burmese military junta’s attack on unarmed protestors I thought I was listening to the Prime Minister and Costello and Downer trotting out, trotting out the same excuses for introducing laws in this country which criminalise dissent. Which make criminals of people who want to change or improve this society. I mean anybody who has any doubts the Howard government would not use these laws, only has to look at what happened in Sydney during the APEC conference to realise that John Howard administration has much more in common with the Burmese military dictatorship than most of us would dare to think. Does anybody think, does anybody seriously think, that with all these repressive laws in place, that the reaction of the Australia government will be any different to the that of the Burmese military junta, if 10’s of thousands of Australians decided that parliamentary democracy was little more than 2 minutes of illusory power and challenged this governments ideologically driven agenda on the streets or in the workplace or any other Australian governments ideologically driven agenda, if it was challenged in the streets and the workplace, do you think they would have no hesitation, if you do, look at the way men, women and children asylum seekers and refugees were treated and continue to be treated in this country. If you think they pass laws to just pass the time of day, think again. Every law that is necessary to violently crush protest, to criminalise dissent in this country, is now on the statute books. The difference between Burma and Australia is the fact that the Burmese were willing to take to the streets to try to overthrow the odious military dictatorship, while in Australia, most people still believe in parliamentary elections and think change comes through parliament not through people taking direct action.

You’ve been listening to the Anarchist World this Week, broadcast across Australia on the National Community Radio Satellite streaming live on 3cr.org.au this program is now pod cast, you can pick it off the internet anytime you like, obviously after the program is finished.

Although Mr Ned Ludd is technologically incompetent, he’s been wondering around the studio for the last 10 minutes trying to push the right buttons so he can be heard by the people of this country and the people of the planet through the internet. Now look, hopefully we’ve got the right microphone, what do you reckon, have you got the microphone right?
- I meant to check up by putting the earphones on
- You’re going to put the earphones on?
- Yes
- This is a little trick you’ve learnt?
- Well, can you hear me?
- I can hear you but can anybody else hear you? I can hear you really well, Mr Ned Ludd, I don’t know if the rest of the world can hear you, does the rest of the world want to hear you?
- Well that’s the whole point, we have advantages in having a microphone because the rest of the world can’t really turn us off, this is something that the media has used forever now, they say well..
- The rest of the world can turn us off they just switch off the radio,
- Oh yes, but nevertheless if they switch you off the unfortunately there will still be hundreds listening, if you think the present campaign, the electoral stunt, if you think it doesn’t work, think of the millions they’re spending on it, something must work,
- Well it’s good if you’re a media mogul, it’s a great way to get an income. Now Ned, before I get an avalanche of phone calls, faxes, emails asking me when is the book coming out? Are we waiting for you to die a second time? Is all material in yet?
- I think you’re just putting pressure on me because I used to put pressure on you.
- That’s right. We’re waiting for that last chapter, aren’t we?
- I’m nearly there.
- Will we get it out by the end of the year, do you thin?
- I hope so.
- Alright.
- Let’s go for December – first week in December.
- Okay
- Now what are we talking about today?
- I’m talking about something that sounds a bit way-out, I’m talking about weights and measures.
- Weights and measures.
- You remember reading about the way people’s heads got chopped off during the French Revolution?
- Yes.
- Well, actually the French Revolution did a lot of good things which people don’t talk about. The people whose heads got chopped off were the very largely intending politicians but they were also unfortunately some ordinary people and there was some scientists in fact some of the people that brought in the metric system that I want to talk about, that were also a chap I know, La Varsier, who also got his torso shortened by the length of a head, but, by and large, they had a chance to improve matters, that the idea was to actually make a system which was universal but which was useful for the people. That’s now gone by the board
- Hang on, before we go any further, give us a definition of the metric system
- The metric system is a system which depends on the factor of 10, throughout the range. In other words, you’ve got a base unit, say the gram, then you’ve got 10 grams for a tetragram, then there’s a centigram which very few people use, then there’s the kilogram. This of course allows you, if you understand the basic unit, to build your own system, using the sub-divisions which you find convenient. That’s something which the French people who proposed the metric system were very insistent on – that it should be convenient. If people are used to half, quarters and things which we call binary divisions, that that should actually be quite legitimate. I mean, what we now have, and I’m talking about this nonsense system they brought in, in 1960, it’s called the SI system – the System Internationale. It’s neither a system nor is it international. For instance, the yanks never used the metric system for the people. They use it for scientists and nobody knows in the states which system they’re using, that’s why they lost $200 million dollars worth of satellite to Mars, or space probe to Mars, because it was programmed half in metric and half in the old...we call the imperial units.
- Why is it so important?
- Well, you know, there is a lot of different system, whether some number you put in is kilometres or miles there is a vast difference
- Are you suggesting that in a global world, or even in a world where there is more than 2 villages, it’s useful for both villages to use the same system of measurements.
- Well the problem with the French system, and it’s existed before, was, and I’m not joking, there were 5000 inches of different lengths, so nobody knew and you have it today, if you’re reading the papers that oil was so much per barrel, do you know what that barrel represents?
- No, no idea. I assumed it was a beer barrel.
- Yes, well possibly. When you say that a ship is 30,000 tonnes, is that tonnes weight, tonnes displacement, it just depends on whether it’s a naval ship or an ordinary commercial ship.
- Look, so what is the difference between the SI system and the metric system which was proposed or used after the French Revolution?
- Well I was brought up after the metric system I felt the difference very acutely in the system that I was brought up. They had decagrams or the Italians used hetragrams which was a very useful measure and it compared roughly in size with the ounce. But if you had a recipe, your measurement would be expressed in this unit. It would be expressed in litres or decilitres and basically everybody could understand that it was very useful. Therefore people embraced that system. Where I was brought up nobody would have wanted to go back to the old non-metric system
- Millions of people in the world still use the non-metric system, including the United States
- Yes mainly because they never brought it in, of course the Yanks always think what they do, everybody else has to follow. The idea that they should follow somebody…
- It doesn’t seem to have stymied their industrial growth.
- Well it hasn’t but on the other hand, it has been the people like the Japanese who use the metric system who have tended the metric system who have tended to catch up and overtake them on a lot of things. Where you have the American system prevailing is in aviation, for instance. As soon as you get off the ground, which is measured in metric units, you get into feet and that’s because they said, we have all these instruments in airplanes that are calibrated in feet so we can’t chance that, it will cost too much money.
- So the metric system bypasses culture and political differences. It is a universally applied system.
- Yes, that would be true and that would be a drawback, and was quite a drawback particularly
- Why is that a drawback?
- It’s a drawback because it has the effect of destroying cultures
- Bahhhh cultures that need to be destroyed! (ha ha)
- I certainly think that in the case of the measuring system, it did need to be destroyed. We had a system, I kid you not, where it was 437 and a half pounds to the gram, now that’s not a very useful way of measuring.
- No
- Well basically the old metric system which allowed, and in fact encouraged, a half of this and a quarter of that, if it suited the people, that was actually a very convenient answer. Having been brought up under it, I would say that the best idea would be to go back to the old non-SI units or allow them to augment the SI, using all those deficients
- Well all I can say is that this is one time I am bitterly utterly confused.
- Why?
- I mean, obviously you are being a Luddite, aren’t you? A true Luddite.
- Yes, well if you have a recipe which actually says 500 millilitres of milk, you know perfectly well that what they really mean is half a litre.
- Yes
- Well if that’s the case why not say so? Why have all these noughts
- Standardisation. Make it easier for everybody. So we’re all talking the same language
- No their not! Because 500 of something could either mean 5 with 2 noughts as a placeholder or it can mean 500 real 500.
- Look can you sum up, Ned, before I throw you out and then the listeners can talk to you directly to make sense of this
- All I wanted to say is, every time the capitalist system gets hold of something, it’s somebody’s advantage that is at stake. The SI system was the result of the fight between 2 groups of people. One had something called centimetre, grams, and the other one had the kilogram, metres and they had to fight and the kilograms metres sector won. And nobody seemed to care about the butchers, the bakers and the candlestick makers who had to use these units that they came up with. So what I’m saying is instead of what they are doing in Britain now, is to try and legitimate the old imperial system, why not actually go back to the metric system as it was and give people the chance of using units which are absolutely user-friendly like up until 1960. Now everybody thinks that the metric system is what we’ve got now and that the metric system is useless because it makes it so hard for you to work on
- No not everybody, Ned. This is one boy who loves the metric system. Alright, thankyou for coming to the studio, Ned. If you wan to continue this discussion with Mr. Ned Ludd, he’ll be in the studio for at least another 20 minutes or so, in the radio station. And if you listen to this program at 10.30am Eastern time, Wednesday the 3rd of October, in the year 2007, well, if you ring (03) 9419 8377 you can talk to Ned Ludd directly. If you ring us on (03) 8508 9856 we can send you out a copy of Getting Our Measure and diatribe 170 will be the last diatribe in the book. Now this will be the last diatribe. That’s it. 170 pages. No more. We’re waiting for the finale now. No finale, no book. Alright, thankyou very much.
- Thankyou.
- Oh, I feel confused. But it doesn’t matter, that’s what we’re hear for, to be confused
- The world is meant to confuse you
- I prefer to be confused about this, than maybe Iraq or Parliamentary Democracy. You beauty!
- This is something we can define, that’s something you can’t do with politics.
- Yes we can. You beauty!
Now if you had a great aunt or a great uncle you never heard of left you a significant legacy, maybe a few hundred grand, or you won tattslotto, you’d go crazy for a while wouldn’t you and spend up, spend up. After the initial euphoria wore off and you were covered in whitegoods, you’d pay off you’re debts, and invest what’s leftover for you’re future and your family’s future, wouldn’t you. That’s what a normal human being would do, isn’t it? I don’t know if Ned Ludd would do that but I would do that. Well that’s what most people would do, isn’t it. The Howard government, has, through more good luck than good economic management, found itself in the midst of a resources boom. The Chinese government and the Indian governments want our resources so they can have the same number of whitegoods. Despite Australia virtually giving away our natural resources, the Howard government has been able to generate a 395 billion dollar surplus in the last 5 years. Isn’t that wonderful 395 billion. A bit like wining tattslotto, a legacy from your mates. The Howard government, having paid off the debts, before the cash from the resources boom came in, has, like a drunken sailor, my apologies to drunken sailors, given away 385 billion dollars in direct and indirect tax cuts , fuelling inflation. The story is very simple. Windfall gain 395 billion dollars of 5 years. 385 billion given away in direct and indirect tax cuts. It’s spend, spend, spend philosophy, designed to curry favour for short term political pain has put Australians, that’s you and me, in an insidious position. Now, the current infrastructure bottlenecks we all hear about, the deplorable state of public hospitals and public education is a direct result of a government that has given Australian workers illusory tax cuts that have in the main, been used to pay for a privatised public services that Australians did not have to pay for while they remained in public hands. So here we have 395 billion dollar windfall in 5 years, 385 given away as tax cuts, fuelling inflation and the debt binge. The pallid state of this country’s infrastructure, and the current lack of skilled workers in Australia is directly related to the Howard government’s inability and unwillingness to use to use that 395 billion dollar windfall gain to build much-needed infrastructure and train Australians to do the work that increasing numbers of guest workers are now coming into this country to do because Australian workers don’t have the necessary skills. So instead of investing in education, investing in training, in building roads, in building infrastructure, and improving the ports, in building railways, this government gives it away in illusory tax cuts. People who believe the Howard government are good economic mangers, all those people who believe the Howard government are good economic managers, are the same type of people who believe the same type of outrageous claims made in the federal government’s pre-election tax-payer-funded advertising blitz. Amazing. If I won Tattslotto and I spend everything, people think I’m a fool, but if the federal government gets a windfall gain of 395 billion dollars, and gives it away in illusory direct and indirect tax cuts, they’re great economic managers, while allowing the country’s infrastructure, and the most important asset of this country – it’s people, not to gain skills because they think it’s better to do tax cuts. Howard and Costello have, through their inept handling of the resources boom windfall, missed a once in a century opportunity to build public infrastructure, to service every citizens needs in this country. So next time some idiot, with a capital I, tells you that Howard and his government are good economic managers, just point out how they’ve blown 385 billion dollars over the past 5 years for short term political gain when they had resources in their hands. They didn’t have to borrow the money from international markets, they had the resources in their hands, to provide training, and education to all those Australians to overcome the skills shortage that we currently have, and they had the money, they had the resources, but not the political will, because as far as their vision goes to the next federal election, to build infrastructure in this country. The facts are there. 395 billion dollars, and it could have been 1000 billion if they were not willing to bend over for the corporate sector and solve those resources for a penny. Now wonder the Chinese government loves coming to Australia, they know that they can get things exceptionally cheap, because this government is more interested in corporate profits, than it is in the welfare of Australians. So next time you hear about these wonderful economic managers, you tell those idiots who are telling you that garbage, what the fact are. These people are hopeless spendthrifts. They couldn’t organise a chook raffle, and id they did organise a chook raffle in a pub, they’d eat the chook before the raffle.

Let’s move on, because talking about idiots, I mean, what a week! Here we have Mr Andrews pulling another rabbit out of the election hat. They tried to marginalise indigenous Australians, asylums seekers, and now it’s refugees from certain parts of Africa. That’s right, they can’t fit in. Obviously, this is just an election ploy. They’ve done their research. They know there is a little bit of a racist undercurrent in this country. And the more visibly different somebody is the more difficult it is for them to get on in this country. So they’ve targeted black Africans! These people will target anybody! As long as they’re poor, disadvantaged, marginalised an can’t fight back, they’re happy to target them and all those racists listening to this program, who somehow think that a few thousand African refugees are responsible for the situation they find themselves in, it’s about time they looked at the policies which have been introduced through Work Choices where it’s been shown time and time again, that those with the fewest skills, who are not able to bargain, who have been short-shrifted, and these are the very same people who think it’s the black refugee down the road or the aboriginal down the street or the Greek around the corner, that has somehow caused their problem for them. If your wages aren’t high enough, think about what’s happened. That about how they’ve criminalised the ability of workers to remove their labour. If you’re having a hard time at work, because the boss is giving you a hard time, legally, think about the reason and who has introduced this legislation. And if anybody is stupid enough to believe that a few thousand black refugees who are responsible for this then you’re playing into the hands of skilful manipulators who will use anybody’s pain and suffering to promote their ideological laced arsenic-laced agenda. It’s that divide and rule. It’s about time people understood their problems come, not from the refugee down the road, not from an indigenous Australian, not somebody who looks different or is a different colour, or is shorter or taller, different gender, different gender orientation, different sexual preference, no. no. it comes from a government which is hostage to the corporate sector. A government that no longer represents the interests of any section of this community. And if you think, as I said the 3 stooges, you’ve got Andrews, now you’ve got Hocking, so some university puts out some research, which tells everybody what everybody knows, that Work Choices legislation has been good for a small minority of the population is actually able to negotiate because they’ve got skills, and there’s a shortage of people with skills in that particular area they can negotiate with employers and it’s bad for people who are semi-skilled or unskilled who are not in position to bargain, for example, for the 180 so-called Australia agreements, (Workplace agreements or what I call Australia feudal agreements or feudal bands) which they’ve established with their bosses, one third are under 24. That’s right. One third are under 24. 3 quarters or people are earning less than $700 a week. So obviously people are not in a position to bargain who have been screwed by Work Choices and if some academic, some think tank, some university, I think the University of Sydney, says, that’s the reality because the government refuses to put out statistics. They’re happy to put out statistics about how many African refugees there are, they’re happy to put out statistic about increasing wages across the board, but when it comes to statistics, about what’s happening with the Work Choices legislation, no statistics pout out whatsoever. Nothing, a blank canvass, and when some organisation puts out the truth, you get fools like Hockey, and you have to go a long way to find somebody who is able to misrepresent the truth more than this man is able to misrepresent the truth, attacking the researches because of non-existent connections they have with the trade union movement, saying, because the NSW trade union movement paid for 50% of the research and the federal government paid for 50% of the research, the researchers are biased. They have no intellectual integrity, you can’t trust the information. Well I would trust the information that comes out of that then the blatant lies that are told every minute of the day on television, radio and the newspapers, through those scummy Work Choices ads that have as much to do with reality as Martians landing on this planet tomorrow.

And then, the 3rd stooge, Mr Tony Abbot, if there’s one federal minister who has never come across his portfolio, is the federal health minister Tony Abbot. Anybody who had any doubts about Abbot’s capacity to deal with the complex health portfolio only has to look at his latest lame duck health board proposal. Adding an extra layer of beurocrats to the health delivery system isn’t the type of medicine any sane minister would contemplate administering to a health system that has been starved of funds to do the work that is required of it to do. If Abbot and his little mate Mr John Howard, who I’ve noticed seems to be moving away from Mr Abbot’s latest harebrained scheme, was serious about the long term health delivery system they could start by diverting the 4 billion dollars of taxpayers funds that are diverted away from the public health care sector to subsidise the health care costs of those 40% of Australians who are able to afford private health insurance. If Abbot and Howard were serious about putting Australians 750 public hospitals back into the hands of the community, they would organise for the members of the new boards they want to run public hospitals, to be elected by the people living in the communities they serve. Not appointed by the federal government. This is about appointing boards by the federal government to run a moribund health system, it’s a little bit like changing the guards at the gate of the concentration camp and saying that things have improved in the concentration camp because we’ve changed the guards at the front gate. But they’ve kept all the nasty guards inside. It’s the same with the public health system. For them to say that if we appoint a board and could you imagine with their history with the type of people they appoint to boards like the ABC, the museum of Australia, the list goes on and on. You can see that they would appoint their ideological soul mates to run those public hospital. So if they were interested in democracy and they were interested in putting public hospitals back into the hands of the communities, they would organise elections for those members of the boards to reflect the will of the members of the communities served by those hospitals. John Howard, despite his 30 year parliamentary career, and his 11 years as Prime Minister, has always, at every occasion, has shown an appalling lack of knowledge about how the public health system works. Not that you’d expect much from a politician who has made his life’s goal to dismantle Medicare and force Australian to take out private health insurance because his government has starved the public health sector of the finances necessary to provide even basic public health services to Australians. Think about it. You need both power and wealth. You can make all the decisions you like, but the wealth to carry out those decisions, that democracy is illusory. The public health system is in a deplorable state. And it is in this deplorable state today because of the lack of funding at both federal and state level. Let’s put blame where blame needs to be put. The federal government funds 43% of public hospitals, state governments 57%. The Howard government has never, never, never, shown an interest in any public enterprise unless they can sell it off. If they can sell it off, they’re interested. Whether it’s Medibank Private, whether it’s Telstra, the list goes on and on. If they can sell it off, they’re interested, and if they can’t sell it off, they’re not. Whether it’s the pubic health system or public education, the same strategy is being used. You run down the public health services, you run down public education, by starving these sectors of funds, and then you say, isn’t the public sector terrible? We all have to take out private insurance. We all have to send our kids to private schools if you want a decent education. You can’t get it thought the public sector. This is the lies that these men and women in both of the major political parties continue to push out. If there’s one moment in the political cycle where you can have some impact, now is the time. The government can’t provide decent public education and decent public health systems to its citizens, then what’s the point of having that government or system of government. And while we allow the political debate to be carried out in the boardrooms of national and transnational corporations, we will continue to reap the problems that we face today.

You are listening to the Anarchist World this Week broadcast across Australia on the national community radio satellite. My name’s Joseph Toscano. If you want a complimentary copy of this weeks Anarchist Age Weekly Review (03) 8508 9856. Let’s move on.

The question why? I wake up every morning and I question why? I’ll never find an answer to that, neither will you. But why do 21 million people living on a continent, we don’t live in the flood plains of Bangladesh, and we’re not living in a Southern Sudan, we are living on a continent in the middle of a resources boom. So why do 21 million people living on a continent in the middle of a resources boom, have so much trouble providing for the real needs of the community. Not manufactured needs which we are very good at providing. You know, all those manufactured needs we see on radio and television. The answer is devastatingly simple. It’s so simple that I can’t believe that people never think about it. The means of production, distribution and exchange of communication rare owned by a minority. The political process, which we call parliamentary democracy, and designed to ensure that power and wealth continues to be the sole prerogative of the rich and powerful in our community. The convergence of political debate in the parliament, the media and the community isn’t an accident. Everybody talks the same things, wants the same things, and lo and behold, they all seem to somehow support corporate domination of everyday life. It’s no accident. Everybody’s talking the same thing. When you’ve got power residing in the boardroom of national and transnational corporations. When you’ve got people who own the means of production, distribution and exchange of communication setting the political agenda. Setting the debate. No wonder everybody talks the same message. Power in this country does not lie in parliament. What parliament can and cannot do is ultimately determine, as I keep saying over and over again, for those sections of the community who enjoy a monopoly on the means of production, distribution and exchange of communication. The greatest gift, and it is a gift, the Howard government has delivered to the puppet-masters, is the change to Australia culture they have been able to foster through a carrot and stick approach. The rich militant tradition which has won Australians many of the right s and privileges that we still continue to hang onto has been stifled and strangled through legislation which makes it virtually impossible for working people to withdraw their labour. The introduction of this legislation has been accompanied by measures that have seen more and more Australians at all levels of life been incorporated into capitalist culture and the capitalist system relatively easily. Easy credit. Increasing job insecurity. The introduction of a superannuation system that allows workers wages to fund and expand the very economic system that exploits them. A mass media that pumps out the same message and a de-politicised population has accepted a culture of acceptance and compliance that is greatly increased the power of those sections of the community that exercise power. That’s why we have a convergence of opinion. That’s why we never hear anything different in this country. And that is Howard’s greatest gift to the puppet masters. The fact that his government has been able to transform Australian culture into a compliant culture where people believe their best interests are intertwined with the best interests of the very sections of the community that exploit them, their children and their labour.

You’ve been listening to the Anarchist World this Week, broadcast across Australia on the national community radio satellite. A few little announcements: if you want to write to Mr Akin Sari, it’s Mr Akin Sari c/o Melbourne Remand Section PO Box 500 St Albans 3021 Melbourne Australia. If you are in Melbourne and you are interested in participating, there is a very interesting forum, in the gay lesbian transgender and sexual disabled community forum which will be held Friday the 26th of October, please ring Wendy Bainger 0417 688 562. Very interesting. If you want a complimentary copy of this weeks edition of the Anarchist Age Weekly Review and Ned Ludd’s epistle 8508 9856. you can download the Weekly issue 757 from anarchistmedia.org you can join Direct Democracy not Parliamentary Rule, rulebythepeople.org, you can sign the Sedition Charter seditioncharter.org, you can write to us at PO Box 20 Parkville 3052. Thankyou for listening to the Anarchist World this Week, streaming live on the national community radio satellite also on 3cr.org.au. This program is pod cast. And don’t forget, 2 dates – Monday 3rd December at Ballarat for the Reclaim the Radical Spirit of the Eureka Rebellion celebrations, 7th year we’ve been holding the celebration. And don’t forget the 20th January next year for the Tunnerminnerwait and Maulboyheenner commemoration, and I’ll talk more about that next week. Thankyou once again for listen to the Anarchist World, this week.