Keine Macht für Niemand : 2012 Melbourne By-election

Posted on July 7, 2012 by @ndy

The candidates for the July 21 by-election for the lower house seat of Melbourne (in order of ballot preference) are:

1. Berhan Ahmed (independent); 2. Ashley Fenn (Family First); 3. Gerrit Schorel-Hlavka (MAY JUSTICE ALWAYS PREVAIL); 4. David Nolte (self-described, centre-right, small ‘l’ liberal independent); 5. John Perkins (Secular Party of Australia); 6. Jennifer Kanis (Australian Labor Party); 7. David Collyer (Democrats); 8. Patrick O’Connor (Socialist Equality Party); 9. Michael Murphy (Democratic Labor Party); 10. Joseph Toscano (Anarchist Media Institute et al); 11. Stephen Mayne (independent); 12. Kate Borland (independent); 13. Adrian Whitehead (independent); 14. Fiona Patten (Sex Party); 15. Cathy Oke (Australian Greens); and 16. Maria Bengtsson (Australian Christians).

Of the independents, Ahmed is a (former) Greens member; Schorel-Hlavka is a man willing to think outside of the box; Stephen Maybe is a well-known Man About Town; Kate Borland is standing in order to draw attention to the parlous state of public housing (NB. Labor candidate and law-talking girl Jennifer Kanis sits on the Board of Housing Choices Australia); while Adrian Whitehead is a former Greens candidate (for the Federal seats of Chisholm in 1996 and Corangamite in 1998) and Maria Bengtsson is a Pastor at City West Church.

Christians and Communists, Sexyists and Secularists.

For the record, pundits agree that the winning candidate is almost certainly going to be either Green or Red.* That said… Uncle Joe and Fiona ‘Sex’ Patten last went head-to-head in the Higgins by-election in 2009. On that occasion, Fiona came out on top, with 2,144 votes (3.21%) while Joe managed 523 (0.78%). Also having a crack at the seat of Higgins in ’09 was David Collyer. He managed to squeeze in-between Joe and Fiona with 1,531 votes (1.29%). In the Victorian state election of 2010 in the Northern Metropolitan Region (Upper House), Patten also managed to come ahead of independent Stephen Mayne, snatching 14,163 votes (3.59%) ahead of Mayne’s 3,809 (0.97%), while Adrian Whitehead had to content himself with a mere 348 (0.09%).

Who’ll come first this time, I wonder?

We don’t need a landlord
For the houses are ours
We don’t need a factory owner
The factories are ours

Out of the way, capitalist
The last battle we will win
Throw away your gun police
The red front and black front are here

We do not need a strong man
For we ourselves are strong enough
We ourselves know what to do
Our head is large enough

Our fight means peace
And we are fighting your war
Each battle that we lose
Means our next victory

* NB. Hosni Mubarak’s National Democratic Party (NDP) in Egypt was a member of the Socialist (Second) International (SI) — alongside the New Zealand Labour Party, the Australian Labor Party and the British Labour Party — from 1989 until its expulsion in January 2011 [PDF], after the mass demonstrations emerged that brought down Mubarak (but not the NDP).

Posted in State / Politics | Tagged | 1 Comment

Cosmic Psychos documentary is pozible?

Posted on July 6, 2012 by @ndy

Matt Weston is looking for funding for a documentary film about Melbourne band the Cosmic Psychos. He needs to raise $28,000 by the end of August. Do yourselves a favour and pledge your support on pozible.

Posted in Film, History, Music, Poetry | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Ideas to Change the World, Melbourne, July 27–29, 2012

Posted on July 6, 2012 by @ndy

‘Renegade Activists Action Force’ (RAAF) is a Melbourne-based group of troublemakers. You may remember them from such protests as AIDEX ’91. RAAF have organised a conference to take place over the last weekend in July beginning Friday July 27 and ending Sunday July 29: “a weekend of ideas to challenge Capitalism”. That’s just three weeks from now, and just one week before the Melbourne Anarchist Bookfair (Saturday, August 4).

Read the blurb.

Date and Time: Fri, 27/07/2012 – 9:00am – Sun, 29/07/2012 – 5:00pm
Location: Trades Hall, 54 Victoria Street, Melbourne, VIC, 3053
Contact: [email protected] / 0422 743 573
(Please note there will be free child care and food available throughout the conference.)

Posted in State / Politics, That's Capitalism! | Tagged | Leave a comment

Statement from compañero Mario López

Posted on July 5, 2012 by @ndy

[Original, Spanish-language source here.]

Statement from compañero Mario López

Hello dear comrades, as you already will know (inside and outside of Mexico) I find myself hospitalized due to injuries to my shin, leg, and right arm. At the moment I’m “ok” given the situation, I am concerned about my health and am also concerned about several things which I’ll expand upon in a few points.

First the fact of writing now and not later.

Well, this is easy because physically I have the ability to do so and because in the future when they charge or sentence me the control will be greater and communication will be more difficult.

ABOUT MY HEALTH

Well, I have three fairly serious burns, the first on the right leg, the second is a hole from once side of my arm to the other, and the last is on the right shin. Bad if one day I go back to practicing Muay Thai. In the hospital the nurses and doctors are behaving great, including nicknaming me “bombiux” and I have hope in saving my leg.

ABOUT THE LEGAL SITUATION

Here the problem is that another person is now implicated because we made the error of carrying in the backpack which remained at the scene her ID and because of that they identified her and linked her with a video of the area. Yesterday (June 28) they told me that she was detained, or rather with their words: “now we’ve got your girlfriend” … they said she made a statement against me and well, the same story. First, they wanted (and want) me to claim the attack on a bank in Tlalpan: “I do not accept this,” then they would say it was my comrade (now that she was identified) who did it: “I do not accept this,” and finally they wanted me to name more people who did it and obviously I did not accept this. Regarding my comrade they came to corroborate her physical information and all of this in front of a state lawyer.

ABOUT ME

I stated that I did everything from beginning to end and that I was individually responsible for this act (or attempt), of course this statement was made under pressure, with the army, with the marines, with the military camp #1 and also I was in a state of physical and psychological weakness as a result of the anaelgesics and the surgery on my leg. Even so, I maintained this declaration with the goal of not directly involving more comrades in my problem.

I, as an anarchist, comply (as far as possible) with the consequences and responsibilities derived from my individual act. Therefore, I declared myself responsible for this act from beginning to end, my comrade was only there at the moment when the device exploded and the most serious error was having her ID with us.

ABOUT THE SOLIDARITY FROM COMRADES

Yesterday I almost cried (and today while writing this letter) when the lawyer told me that everyone was outside. It gave me goosebumps that independent of the differences of how we see things, the paths to follow, the means, etc. It showed me that relationships are also built through mutual knowledge. Some take one path or decisions, others others, but at the end of the road is absolute freedom.

ABOUT HOW I’VE IDENTIFIED MYSELF

Since the bomb exploded I have identified myself as an anarchist in spite of the “consequences” that my way of life, struggles and ideas can lead to.

The federal police arrived and tried to turn me and of course I did not accept it. Three years less in jail for being a snitch is not worth it, not even if it was 30.

Regarding the motives that led me to carry out this action, they are more than my futile and contradictory statements to the prosecutors who never stopped pressuring me. In short, as an anarchist, I don’t consider that this type of situation or political moment should be the starting point for projecting our struggle, as building-destruction is the daily construction of our persons and of our goals. I only consider it necessary to draw a clear line regarding political parties without contradicting the above statement. Even more so in these times where populist discourses (democratic left or right) can be confused with our proposals and ideas of freedom.

The IFE (Federal Elections Institute), PRD (Party of the Democratic Revolution), are a couple more institutions that are just like a bank or a police station that conform to the machinery of the system.

This is my statement to the comrades and not to the muddling and manipulative questions of the police, who, without any form of counsel made me fall into unbeneficial positions for my case…but you are the ones who are most important.

I identify myself as an anarchist enemy of any kind of State and of capital, each chooses the methods or means according to their criteria, but the struggle is a daily one, inside and outside of the prisons.

To the comrades in solidarity and to the Anarchist Black Cross, a strong, combative hug and thank you for being with my mother, she understands the situation.

Greetings to Luciano Pitronello!
Solidarity with all prisoners of war and political prisoners in the struggle!
Solidarity with the comrades who are prisoners in Italy!
For the destruction of the prisons!
Social war on all fronts!
Long live anarchy!
The claim of responsibility begins!

Mario, Tripa
June 2012

Posted in Anarchism, Broken Windows, That's Capitalism! | Tagged , | 9 Comments

Melbourne District By-election 2012

Posted on July 3, 2012 by @ndy

I’m excited!

The by-election for the Victorian State Parliament is taking place on July 21 and there are no less than SIXTEEN candidates, including anarchists, Christians, communists, consumer-rights activists and more!

The winner is almost certainly going to be Labor or — less likely — the Greens. Scandalously, the Sex Party have preferenced Labor ahead of the Greens. Then again, the Greens prefer Labor to Sex.

Posted in State / Politics | Tagged | 7 Comments

anarchist notes (july 1, 2012)

Posted on July 2, 2012 by @ndy

2nd Annual Melbourne Anarchist Bookfair 2012

The second annual Melbourne Anarchist Bookfair is taking place on August 4, 2012 at the Abbotsford Convent in Abbotsford. Entry is free. For more infos see the Bookfair website.

Antisemitism and Anarchy

Antisemitism and Anarchy is a new publication by Dysophia (UK), bringing together a collection of articles that try and unpick some of the debates around the Israel/Palestine conflict, “to make sense of arguments around the meaning of Zionism, what constitutes antisemitism or how to make sense of divisive figures such as Gilad Atzmon. It draws on the anarchist tradition to bring an anti-racist perspective to these difficult questions. While not providing definite answers, these articles have been selected to give anarchists a better overview of all perspectives so that as a movement we can produce more nuanced views that avoid the twin pitfalls of racism and liberalism.”

Erich Mühsam, in English

“Erich Mühsam (1878-1934) was a leading figure in the German anarchist movement. This site will be home to critical English editions of several of his most important works.”

IAS Lexicon pamphlet series

Anarchism? Colonialism? Gender? Power? White supremacy? WTF?

PS. There’s more f*cking Wolves At The Door! Issue #2 (Winter 2012) creature features: ‘Who are the wolves? an introduction’ / an interview with those responsible for the always outrageous Disaccords blog / ‘attacking the institutions of genocide: an anarchist perspective on solidarity with anti-colonial struggles’ / ‘Apocalypse activism: a review of the film END:CIV‘.

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Money and Better Homes & Gardens

Posted on June 30, 2012 by @ndy

I didn’t realise this ’til now but in BREAKING NEWS…

In April an Australian Senator pretended to spend a week as a dole bludger.

LIVING off $17 a day may sound impossible to most people but Greens senator Rachel Siewert will do just this for a week, in an attempt to highlight the struggle people on the dole face.

In this context, Senator Siewert is a bit like Christopher Hitchens: The Drink-Soaked Ex-Troyskite Popinjay For War needed to actually undergo torture in order to understand that water-boarding is not. fun. For her part, Siewert discovered that having a very small income does tend to make life a little. bit. difficult. (NB. The stunt of going on the dole for a week is an old one: I can remember a Democrats Senator doing it once back in the ’80s.)

Of course, the Senator’s week of poverty was intended to help promote the Greens’ campaign to reward shirkers with an additional $50 per week of unearned income. Or to put it another way: to ensure bludgers would continue living under The Poverty Line.

Well, that’s what the policy wonks at the Melbourne Institute tell their fellows anyways. In their latest report (March 2012), the scienticians at the Institute calculate that a single person with no dependents and a weekly income of $470.36 is on the poverty line; the maximum allowable Newstart payment, on the other hand, is $303.10.

In any case:

On 26 June 2012 the Senate referred the following matter to the Senate Education, Employment and Workplace Relations Committees for inquiry and report.

The adequacy of the allowance payment system for jobseekers and others, the appropriateness of the allowance payment system as a support into work and the impact of the changing nature of the labour market.

No doubt the inquiry will prove to be an exciting development in the struggle for economic justice and social equality.

Of course, the Greens aren’t the only ones who think the unemployed should be punished with poverty for their work-shy ways. Labor too is firmly committed to maintaining a reasonably-sized pool of surplus labour, the useless mouths useful as examplars of what happens to work resistors and those who fail to worship at the feet of The Economy.

Last month, according to The Age, “PRIME Minister Julia Gillard faces a growing push from Labor MPs to raise the dole, with warnings it is so low that people are being forced into poverty and even turning to crime.”

Which — as well as ignoring the existence of the underground economy — I assume is expected to be responded to as though it were some kinda revelation rather than as a perfectly predictable and completely unremarkable fact of life.

Speaking of poverty, KRudd’s wife Therese Rein recently snuck on to Australia’s Rich List. Her rise was dependent on the decline of the welfare state and the privatisation of state employment services. The massive expansion in state subsidies to the charity industry — dominated, naturally, by religious institutions — has also enabled folks like Toby Hall to ascend to the pinnacle of the industry, from which vantage point the former stockbroker likes to lecture the poor on good behaviour.

If so many people weren’t made so rich by the poors, I’d advocate some kinda Final Solution.

See also : Dole bludgers, tax payers and the new right: constructing discourses of welfare in 1970s Australia (Verity Archer) (February 12, 2010).

Posted in Broken Windows, State / Politics, That's Capitalism! | Tagged | Leave a comment

Rally for Assange : Melbourne, Sunday, July 1

Posted on June 26, 2012 by @ndy

There’s a rally in support of Julian Assange this weekend.

Where : State Library, Swanston Street, Melbourne
When : Midday, Sunday, July 1

Following his fail in the UK courts, Assange is currently attempting to start a new life as a llama farmer but who knows if he’ll be able to. In any case, a glittering array of local talent will be on hand to entertain and inform the masses, including the bRanes behind Rap News, what Cam and I got to pick on radio some months ago.

Funnily enough, the hip-hop journalists got funny man Noam Chomsky on the show during his last and final visit to Straya; his recent endorsement of an open letter generated some minor controversy in the Twitterverse.

Well, my tiny corner of it anyway.

In any event, the letter — signed by “leftist hero” Chomsky (and a few hundred other less heroic celebrities) apparently implies that rape is not a serious crime.

Or something.

To be honest, I found the Twitter conversation I had about the letter and its meaning a bit confusing.

Moar later.

Maybe.

Posted in !nataS, Media, Sex & Sexuality, State / Politics, That's Capitalism!, War on Terror | Tagged , | 9 Comments

t00t t00t! All Aboard The Australian Protectionist Party Failboat!

Posted on June 24, 2012 by @ndy

In bad news for Australian Protectionists, the ‘Australian Protectionist Party’ has confirmed its reputation as the most pathetic party to be formally registered with the state. While boasting over 500 members and five years of political activity, just five people bothered to attend their anti-refugee rally in Sydney on Saturday. At first called in order to demand that the Australian government ‘Torpedo the boats’ carrying asylum seekers to Australia, a week before the rally the organising slogan was amended to ‘Torpedo the government boats policy’. The shift in rhetoric appears to have resulted from pressure applied by the party’s nominal leader Andrew Phillips; the failure of the rally, and the party generally, to have resulted in the resignation of de facto party leader Darrin Hodges (below right).

In good news for the APP and its supporters, no torpedoes were required in order to sink a boatload of asylum seekers just days prior to Saturday’s fail. Judging by the commentary on the now-deleted Facebook Events page for the rally, many champagne corks were popping at the news of the many dozens of men, women and children who appear to have drowned at the scene. In any case, the dumb, drunk and racist antics of the APP are further documented in ‘Episode Two’ of Joe Hildebrand’s Dumb, Drunk and Racist; some further consideration is given to the Australian government’s own role in failing to avert the disaster in Decency all at sea as another boatload sinks, Michael Bachelard, The Age, June 24, 2012.

See also : Anti-Immigration Party to March Against Refugee Welcome Rally, Nicholas Sauer, Tharunka, June 2012.

Posted in !nataS, Anti-fascism, Death, State / Politics, War on Terror | Tagged , , , , , | 8 Comments

WHaT?

Posted on June 21, 2012 by @ndy

Yeah well anyway. Nobody reads my blog any more. They’re too busy sailing. (And by ‘nobody’ I mean ‘Evan’ and by ‘sailing’ I mean ‘reading about farming’.) In any case, I’ve been busy trolling the Australian Protectionist Party. Thus far I’ve succeeded in embarrassing the organisers of the shambolic Internets farce (formerly) known as the ‘Torpedo the boats’ rally into running, screaming like girlie men, far, far away from my 1337 skills. It’s even possible that chief organiser and former dildo salesman Darrin Hodges has quit the APP in disgust at lack of party support for his bald-headed efforts to stop Lesbian Seagulls from importing Muslamic Rayguns into the country.

THRASH ‘TIL DEATH BROTHERS AND SISTERS!

Posted in !nataS, Media, Poetry, Sex & Sexuality | Tagged , | 13 Comments