The Brumby government in Victoria has tabled an Abortion Law Reform Bill which partially decriminalises abortion, as long as it is carried out within the first 24 weeks of pregnancy.
However, women who need an abortion after 24 weeks must get the permission of two doctors. Doctors will be reluctant to give approval as late-term abortions will still be listed as a crime within the Health Act.
The overwhelming majority of abortions are carried out within the first trimester. Less than 1% of all abortions are performed after 24 weeks. These are the most vulnerable women – women who are teenagers, victims of incest or sexual assault, suffering from mental illness, drug addiction or intellectual disability, or have experienced a sudden tragic life circumstance or discovered a foetal abnormality.
By not fully decriminalising abortions, the government is leaving the most vulnerable women out in the cold. Women should have the right to make decisions regarding their pregnancy, at every stage of that pregnancy without restriction.
Opinion polls have repeatedly shown that the overwhelming majority of people support women’s right to choose abortion, including late-term abortion.
We support the full decriminalisation of abortion, therefore we call for the Abortion Law Reform Bill to be amended to remove any restrictions on late-term abortions.
If would like to add your name to this statement, email abortionrightsforwomen@gmail.com or ring (03) 9639-8622, 0405-195-145 or 0413-377-978.
Abbas Kiarostami is a renowned Iranian film director -- a key figure in that country's New Wave. Having not seen his films before I picked upTen on impulse and watched it because of the way it was shot -- on two small digital mini cameras inside the single location of a Tehran taxi cab.
Ten focuses on ten conversations between the female driver and her passengers.
This may seem a bitAndy Warholish as though Kiarostami is cutting edge avaunt garde and is dedicated to being very much underground cinema and obscure. But Ten isn't like that. It's not indulgent at all.
In the DVD release I watched, the "Extras" included a fascinating documentary -- 10 on Ten-- a segment of which is reproduced above. And in it, Kiarostami explains how he uses cinema and the technology of digital video.
His perspective challenges the present assumptions we tend to make about the movies we see.
His is an attempt to embrace a very simplistic and pure form of human interaction -- expunged of so much of the artificiality that sustains a capitalist aesthetic preference where it seems so much value added.
The capitalist novel
Marxists have for yonks logged the historical development of the novel and how that literary form matched an evolving bourgeois ethos. Cinema, especially talking cinema, has taken up the aesthetic cudgels and asserted a rich narrative fed by so many aesthetic tricks that try to draw you in emotionally and engage you from the protagonists' point of view.
Acting(especially "Method" acting), cinematography, script and the like are all so much engineering designed to take your emotions on a journey: sometimes roller coaster, sometimes maudlin, sometimes horrific. Indeed the genre labels at your local video stores say it all --in effect tell you what you can expect from the commodity before you decide to consume it.
There's nothing wrong with that of course-- that's just good storytelling -- but the technical skilling up is such that the measure of a film tend to be its level of engagement generates with you.
The Alienation effect
An alternative tradition was argued for in Germany between the wars and in theatre, music and cinema a new aesthetic perspective was advocated -- one that is usually associated with the work of the playwrightBertolt Brecht and the music of composer Kurt Weill.
But its genesis and theory is much broader and its adherents tweaked its viewpoint from the struggle and passion of the revolutionary cultural and political experience of Soviet and Germany between the 1917 Russian Revolution and the rise of Hitler in 1933.
This aesthetic which is variously called "epic" or "alienation effect" -- called Verfremdungseffekt in German by Brecht -- was marginalised and then actively suppressed when Socialist Realism took hold of the communist movement world wide under Stalin's Comintern. (Folk like Pablo Picaso managed to experiment unharmed despite his communist affiliations.)
While Verfremdungseffekt was dedicated to didacticism -- it wasn't proffered as propaganda. Essentially this outlook sought to treat its audience with respect. Verfremdungseffekt assumed that its audience also thinks rather than simply feel.
I think the cinema of Kiarostami'sTen aspires to do the same. Rather than hold the audience hostage to artifice his attempt to utilize a simple means of story telling, of exploring with insight, reminds me so much of the perspectives formatted for Verfremdungseffekt .
Brecht and his colleagues tried -- and Kiarostami aspires I think -- to deliver the goods plainly and simply so that we don't get distracted by all these layered add ons -- most of which could be categorised as "special effects" -- the way actor's act, the way the set is lit, the way the film is edited and the camera is angled... secretly and unbeknown to the viewer's consciousness.
The digital promise.
Kiarostami's exploration also offers a rich and exciting promise: that the new media -- especially digital video in mini dv format -- empowers the rest of us to create 'art' with the same ease we would use to write a story. This option, known more generally as Microcinema is a massive antidote to Hollywood-think.
The term Microcinema can have two meanings. It can describe low-budget or amateur films shot mostly on digital video, edited on a computer, and then distributed via videotape, disc or over the Internet. Or it can describe a mode of low-budget exhibition—a small theater or screening series operated in order to show small-gauge filmmaking, artists works, shorts, and repertory programming.
Microcinema is a flexible term that can cover anything - animated shorts, bizarrely impressionistic video manipulations, hard-hitting documentaries, and garage-born feature-length movies. A classic microcinema offering is a film that probably would not exist if new technology hadn't allowed its creators to cut costs or inspired them to try something different.
Kiarostami's major contribution is that he is such a skilled artist that he has taken the Microcinemato a new democratic possibility.
While Kiarostrami has apparently adjusted some of his views since Tenthat cannot undermine the inkling he tries to share with us in a work such as Ten and the documentary that accompanies it.
If you read and a partial to social networking sites GoodReads fits (my) bill. We should try to get some Left book discourse going there. I mean do it consciously. But if you dont know about the platform, check it out.
rating: 5 of 5 stars Written with insight and a strong and warm identification with his subjects, Bageant nonetheless doesn't pull any punches. This is a "left" book in a nation that is so often constrained by a maudlin liberalism when it writes commentary.
At best -- like Hunter S. Thompson it's pretentiously 'hip' or self consciously opinionated like so many of the registered libertarians born out of Havard's Lampoon.
I live in Australia and I can relate to the great tragedy that is the lot of Middle America. The "Red Neck" penchant for conservatism is a political phenomenon that's almost unique to the US. Elsewhere we can still talk about class despite the massive inroads neo liberalism have made on the working class psyche world wide.
So Bageant is offering us anthropology that explores how any of us can be screwed over without knowing the names of our tormentors.
And with G.W Bush free to ransack the planet your US problems are very much ours too. Bageant also offers a tragic seriousness that is missing from the video journalism of folk like Michael Moore. This is a story not about issues but about everyday people at the grindstone...being worn down.
Having only just discovered The Union Show the irony is that it may be killed off by lack of funding. Since I exist in Queensland such insider knowledge wasn't an option for me -- DR
A message from The Union Show's Debra Weddall .
Let's keep the show on the road. You can help us to get continued funding (if you want to) by lobbying your union - this is where we engage in the grassroots campaign because we're mad if we don't - and we can help you lobby with a presentation pack but also you can just as easily get lots of people in your workplace and your union to join and/or view The Union Show Group.
Anyone who would like a Union Show union presentation to help them lobby their union for the continuation of funding please email workers@skatv.org.au and Vas will send you a copy via return email. If you can think of any other help we can give you please message us and we will certainly help if we can.
I suppose everyone knows by now that without further immediate funding last Tuesday was the last show. Now we know we all love Kassey and the show is looking better and delivering more than it ever has - we think we have hit our straps - and in the conversation of life you'd have to say "How ironic".
At this point - we may not be allowed to speak for ourselves but that only means that speak we must.
[Note: although the voice quality was clear there was a certain amount of static and radio interference in this interview. Take this into account if you want to repost or rebroadcast this interview. The static comes in about seven minutes into the interview]
Fred (Frederico) Fuentes, based in Latin America talks about the recent referendum in Bolivia, called by the first elected indigenous president, Evo Morales. In spite of right wing calls to challenge the political empowerment of this man (with threats to secede from the central government and form 'autonomous' states) the referendum actually strengthened the position of a President who is introducing moderate reforms that act to phase out the negative influence of multi-national corporations and global privatisation.
On the situation in Bolivia, Fred Fuentes looks at the role of the military, which after several hundred years of dominating the politics of countries like Bolivia seems to be changing with a new era of social reform.
Lara Pullin, speaking for the Canberra committee of the FMLN, talks further about the importance of next year's elections in El Salvador to the Salvadoran people. The government coalition is trying everything to sabotage the FMLN's 20 point lead in the polls, including the separation of the Presidential election from the local elections with a two month gap. The UN is scrutinising closely the claims of the FMLN that the ARENA led coalition has failed to respect the terms of the Peace Accord of 1992. The FMLN has respected the Accord meticulously, but the ARENA government has failed on a number of counts.
Peter Murphy of the SEARCH foundation has been involved with Timor Leste since 1975. In this interview he talks about the controversial budget put to the Timorese Parliament by Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao. Some parliamentarians in his governing AMP coalition have raised eyebrows, and the decision to dip into the Oil Fund to prop up the budget for an amount more than double what is laid down in the constitutional guidelines has been questioned both within Timor Leste and by international advisors and observers. Peter also comments on more recent findings of the investigation into the attempt on the life of President Jose Ramos Horta on February 11, and suggests that there should be an independent international investigation.
Socialist Alliance today condemned the NSW Premier Morris Iemma’s latest bid to rush through enabling legislation to sell off the state’s energy retailers and generators.
The Premier is recalling parliament from its winter recess on August 28 to vote to sell off public assets estimated to be worth some $15 billion.
“Iemma believes that the Auditor-General’s report into the terms of the electricity sale gives him the political clout to get the Liberals to support the privatisation. The bigger political issue for Labor, however, is the public’s response: we already know that some 85% of NSW don’t want the sale to go ahead”, said Marrickville council candidate Pip Hinman. “And people are going to be even more furious about this”, she added.
“Socialist Alliance, as part of the Power to the People campaign, is against the sell-off. We think that everyone involved in the campaign – unions, Labor members, Greens, socialists, and others should now be planning to bring forward the protest set down for September 20.
“This would help increase the pressure on the Premier and the treasurer, and bolster the ALP MPs who have said that they will cross the floor”, said Ms Hinman.
Socialist Alliance is calling on voters at the September 13 council election to write “No sell-off” on their ballots as a way of sheeting home the message to the Premier.
More information:
Pip Hinman 0412 139 968
Click here for more pictures of the candidates and the campaign.
I posted here a video shot of Peter Camejo addressing the Peace & Freedom convention earlier this month. Camejo's verve for advocacy has not wilted over the years despite his present struggle against cancer.
But the video gave me a chance to check out the Vote Nader Campaign in the hope that some of the attributes that marked the Nader/ Camejo Green Party campaign in 2004 were replicated.
Of course Peter talks about the politics of the campaign and the context of the fight. What I want to draw attention to is the organising.
I think the campaign pitch is the best I've come across and it offers a lot of inspiration
Note: January 2012: Unfortunately many of these links are no longer operating but the approach deployed is still suggestive.
Get Involved!
There' are some elements that are worth studying in the Nader campaign.
"Join our social networks": AddNader/Gonzalez 2008 to your friends on the all the usual social networks: Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Digg.com, and Flickr.
"Spread the word":Send a personal email and add up to 30 email addresses.
House Party: What You Supply
House Party Kit ($30) ordered from the votenader.org store (buttons, bumper stickers, yard sign and window sign). You might also want to order extra merchandise to offer your guests as well.
Location for Party (the location is up to you, your house, park, coffee shop, beach – be creative)
Invitations and guests
TV/DVD player/computer for playing DVD
Name tags
Baskets for campaign and merchandise contributions
Pens
Enthusiasm! DVDs for House Party Viewing
After you have signed up to host a Party and ordered your House Party Kit, the House Party
Coordinator will contact you to arrange sending you copies of the two DVDs, autographed by Ralph
Nader. Inviting Guests
Not every person you invite will be able to come. Our experience is that you need to invite four times as many people as you think you need to meet your goal.
Tell everyone to bring friends. Don’t forget to invite: family members, co-workers, neighbors, members of your place of worship, as well as members of local peace & justice groups, etc. Send Out Invitations
The sample invitation is on page 5 of this Overview section. Rewrite it to it your unique party and send it out at least a couple of weeks before your Party. Include the date, time, address, phone number and directions. Ask everyone to RSVP, so you will be prepared. Let them know it is a fundraiser, so they will be sure to bring their checkbooks or credit cards. It is a good idea to call everyone a few days after you mail the RSVP to make sure they have received your invitation. An email or call a few days before your party, is a good reminder. Plan the Party
People will enjoy your party more if there’s food and drink! Finger foods are simple and easy, but you choose. House Party menus have ranged from the super easy like salsa and chips, to 7-course sit down dinners! Have a cofee, buffet, barbeque, or beach party — whatever appeals to you and your guests.
I wrote recently on my expedition to the Gold Coast with The Power of Community video. Next weekend we are replicating that exercise with a similar event on the Sunshine Coast -- 2 hours north of the Brisbane CBD.
This last weekend we did more in like mode and held a stall at a Brisbane community northside market. If you are a very early riser Sunday marketeering like this tests the political mettle as we had to front the stall holder rendezvous at 5am and staff the stall until at least 11 am or Midday.
The grand plan is to hold regular weekly stalls at this market and pay the stallholder's fee to do so.Stalls at markets like these can come cheap -- we paid $10 for the posey. While it usually is the norm to sell on the street or footpath outside events the logic of a regular stall at a community market like this is, to my mind, about setting up a headquarters.
It's like having an Activist centre in the burbs without paying the going market rent. So you say. " drop in/by and see us Sunday's at the market."
Since I shop every Sunday at this market the way the local Tongans used their stall impressed me. They'd sell taro or cassava from a marqueed location -- just three boxes of root vegetables -- and occasionally some guady Hawaiian style shirts. But I realized that these stallholders were primarily using the retail exercise as a means to link up and chat with their local Islander community.
So with the Tongans' example in mind as far as I am concerned this business of running a stall is about establishing an open air office and outlet for political organising for 5-6 hours each week. It's more than flogging literature -- it's about raising the red flag and doing the community network thing.
And networking is what happens. In a market milieu people are in a different head space than they are in the street. You spend all your time talking and discussing politics and ( usually labour) history like you're a valued guest to the neighborhood -- a sort of consultant. This is especially the case in the 'wake'(huh!) of Work Choices and the impact of Your Rights at Work campaign
Since my stall holding partner and I were local folk it becomes embarrassing how many people knew us (even if you cannot quite place their faces!) besides in market space people track back and forth rather than shoot through and past you only once.
I've sold Green Left Weekly and organised protests in a few places around where I live -- a rather sterile suburban milieu --dominated by shoppingtowns of the Westfield and Centro ilk and it's very difficult to deal with the privatised public space issue with none of the ribbon retail strip to relate to. In the old style inner city suburb that sort of shopping survives to some degree. But the further you move out of the city centre retailing has been captured by the shopping town template and it's a bugger to find a niche to raise a political POV in.
Turn up and it's wall to wall security guards or cops reading you the riot act in bully boy fashion.
Even your standard kosher community groups -- such as the Scouts, APEX or Rotary -- have negotiated their way off the pavement and now occupy a servile existence attached to a $2 sausage sizzle or raffle ticket outlet as an appendage to the entrance to Bunnings or Woolworths. Making your mark with a red flag in one hand won't get under the corporation radar unfortunately when you ask the store manager for a posey out front on real estate they 'own'. But we have to colonize the suburbs some how -- it's all about moving out of the inner city left ghettoes.
But does it work?
That's the rub. It seems to me that if we can separate turnover of stall stock from the sort of quality engagement we can foster we may be away with a chance. These burgs are so politically sterile that a presence such as this can function as an organising focus in a way our usual tendency to ab hoc campaigning has failed to address. Super Satuday in NSW on August 16th suggests that there are ways and means to do community organising or agitating despite the practical difficulties we have to deal with in the urban wasteland. While the extension of shopping hours has gutted the foot traffic you used to be able to access on a Saturday morning -- for those in the dormitory suburbs, community markets may be a way around that handicap. No one else does it. Not the churches or the Greens. The main parties hold stalls three weeks short of polling day and say fuck you for the rest of the time.All they want is your vote.
But to be there and to be seen to be there -- organising for campaigns as they arise changes the traction you may be able to foster.
There's a logic in the madness of a 6am start on a Sunday morning. (And besides it's a great opportunity to have a natter).
2008 Presidential Candidate, Ralph Nader receives a resounding endorsement by legendary social activist Peter Camejo at the Peace and Freedom Delegate Convention in Sacramento, CA on Aug 2nd, 2008:
With "new media" stapled to our banner, LeftClick has been exploring the digital wonderland to give our readers/watchers/listeners the best the left of the web has to offer.
So please note that we have added an in-house link to The Union Show which is a weekly television program out of Channel 31 in Victoria focusing on trade union issues. Streamed over Blip TV the video quality, streaming speed and sound is excellent (nothing like the glitches and hesitancies you get when watching YouTubies). For the time being you can get to The Union Show via a direct link situated in the top banner(next to 'Home').
We've also added Union Air which is produced by theGeelong Trades Hall Council and for our Free Speech Radio News offering, the programming has been changed so that you can select your individual news items from each daily episode of the program.
Our eclectic video, Powerpoint and slideshow offerings are now housed upfront in the left column. LeftClick TV has reverted to a much more stable player which offers better labeling and annotations to the video you may like to watch.
As well as these items don't forget that LeftClick also offers The Stick Together Show --Community Radio 3cr's longtime trade union program.
The Union Show is presented by Kassey Dickie and provides a lively 30 minutes of weekly news from around the Victorian (Australia) trade union movement. From interviews with those making the news to special features The Union Show is a must for those with a rebel heart. The Union Show is produced by SKA TV and screens on Melbourne's Channel 31 every Tuesday night at 7pm
“All those who want to live in a healthy, equal society should vote for the Socialist Alliance”, Soubhi Iskander, one of three candidates to contest ward 3 of the Blacktown City Council elections for Socialist Alliance on September 13, told Green Left Weekly.
Iskander, a 70-year-old political refugee from the Sudan, has lived in Blacktown since coming to Australia in 1995. He is standing with fellow Sudanese refugee Hassan Elnour Abaid and refugee and queer-rights activist Rachel Evans.
“The Socialist Alliance shares the ideology I fought for all my life — people before profit and for people’s right to have a better future”, Iskander said. “By standing for election as a Socialist Alliance candidate, we will open the door for other political refugees to participate fully in Australian political life as Australian citizens.”
Racism is the most important issue facing Blacktown residents, Iskander said. “As a migrant, or as a refugee from the so-called ‘Third World’ we can feel the heavy hand of racism in Blacktown, especially from the police and from those who still live in the era of the White Australia policy.”
He said all peoples from the Third World, “whether from India, Sudan, Egypt or whatever”, should be “treated equally” and “have the same rights as we do obligations”.
He said the discrimination extends to the government’s refusal to recognise overseas qualifications. “We have some very highly qualified people from overseas in Blacktown working as security guards and cleaners. Meanwhile Australia is importing people from Britain, or the US, to work here as nurses or doctors. We have to establish a way that these people’s qualifications will be recognised.”
“The competition for work is very high,” Iskander said. “There are very few jobs, and the jobs that are available are very marginal ones. Instead of studying to get better qualifications, people are forced to work in jobs which are not going to give Blacktown a very bright future.”
The high cost of rents, particularly for those dependent on social security, is another key issue. “The government is doing nothing to provide lower cost housing”, Iskander stressed. “The average price of a two-bedroom flat is around $220 and this is really very high if somebody has only $300 each fortnight, particularly for pensioners and single parents.”
English language classes for new migrants were also too limited and often badly pitched, Iskander said. “They teach them how to act in Australia, but they don’t teach them the language they will need to work with”, he said.
Iskander, a parent, is also campaigning for much more publicly-run childcare. “There are many young families in Blacktown and there are not enough places in public or community childcare. This forces families to search of private childcare, which is very expensive. Centrelink is helping, but the lack of childcare places is still a major barrier for the families.
“We also need more after-school care for children”, Iskander said. “We have to create places where they can enjoy themselves by learning and playing at the same time.”
Iskander called for the greater decentralisation of the shopping precinct so that those from outlying suburbs are not forced to get to central Blacktown to buy their necessities.
He also said that small businesses deserve a better deal. “Over the last year, many small businesses have been bankrupted because they cannot compete with the Westpoint shopping centre”, Iskander explained. “Instead of concentrating all the shops in the one place — Westpoint and Main Street — we need more shops in the suburbs, such as Doonside and Rooty Hill.”
The Socialist Alliance is also calling on Blacktown Council to fund a free community transport service for pensioners, and to demand upgraded public transport from the NSW government to reduce car dependence. Socialist Alliance is also campaigning for popular referendums to be put on any issue facing council, where 10% of residents can call for a vote by petition.
Soubhi Iskander is the editor of The Flame, an occasional insert in Green Left Weekly. For more information on the Blacktown campaign contact Rachel Evans 0403 798 420
Socialist Alliance is running three candidates in Newcastle Council – Ward 3
Here's their answer to one simple question:
What do you think are the main issues that affect your ward?
Laura Ealing: We need a council that's committed to supporting a shift towards sustainability. We need to break our reliance on fossil fuels - they're driving climate change and they're fast running out. If Newcastle's economy is going to survive we need a plan for alternative transport systems and affordable food production through community gardens. We could have a massive expansion of free and frequent public transport by extending the fare free zone to the rest of Newcastle. Council could more actively support the installation of cheap water tanks and solar heating in homes. This is the sort of climate action council we need.
Zane Alcorn: I support recycling - but not for most of the current councilors – in fact overall- the council shows a lack of understanding of the depth of the crisis we’re in. The entire Arctic icecap is probably going to melt by 2013 so we need to get real about reducing emissions. I’ve got viable and realistic ideas to implement systems for renewable energy, sustainable architecture, public transport, and urban agriculture - things that need to happen to save the planet. Its not middle aged business people and developers who are going to inherit the burden of climate change, its people my age.
Thomas Cameron: Within the Newcastle community the youth are facing difficulties finding affordable rental accommodation, high unemployment and a city that isn't exactly vibrant in terms of youth-orientated venues and entertainment. We need a council that's going to address these problems instead of just attacking things like the skate park and The Loft. We think council should be converting vacant buildings into low-rent housing, rather than leaving them idle or allowing developments that most people can't afford to live in. Everyone, including young people, should have a say over what the council does: people power, not corporate power.
Policy and candidate biographies:
For a climate action council in Newcastle
Zane Alcorn for Mayor
Socialist Alliance Team for Zane, Laura and Tom for Ward 3
The latest research shows that Arctic sea ice could disappear by 2013. Within the term of the incoming council, responding to climate change will require an 'emergency' conversion to clean energy and transport. The Socialist Alliance believes that the shift to a low emissions future needs to start right now and we have a clear plan for how to do it - one that will guarantee jobs and protect communities.
Renewable energy and water saving
Using a combination of wind and solar power and improved energy efficiency, Newcastle can dramatically reduce its reliance on coal-fired power and say No to Iemma's electricity sell-off! Council should:
Facilitate interest-free loans to households that can't afford the up-front cost of installing solar panels under the federal government's solar rebate system.
Support the construction of a solar panel factory in the Hunter, providing alternative and green employment opportunities to the coal industry.
Find a way to tax each tonne of coal exported to create a fund to support renewable energy sources and community services.
Make cheap water tanks, water recycling systems and solar hot water systems available and inexpensive to install.
Free and frequent public transport
Council should support an extension of the Fare Free Bus Zone to the rest of Newcastle, make it all day and better integrate public transport with cycleways. This would have an immediate effect on reducing carbon emissions.
Greenwaste and community gardens
Council should further encourage community gardens springing up in Newcastle and help develop neighbourhood-based green waste processing. Community gardens can help reduce the price and environmental cost of food.
Defend the skate park and The Loft
Newcastle has a high proportion of people in the 20-24 age group who face high unemployment and difficulties finding affordable rental accommodation.
Some in the current council seem fixated with scapegoating young people, attacking The Loft and the skate park and imposing curfews. We want to focus on the real issues such as by promoting youth orientated venues, improving the skate parks and converting vacant buildings into low rental accommodation.
People and planet before profits
The Socialist Alliance says that the planet and future generations are more important than profits. What we have outlined will need to be fought for by an informed and active community that can challenge the interests of polluting industries and big developers. We need a council that takes climate change seriously and supports community campaigns for real action.
Ward 3 includes Waratah, Jesmond, Lambton, New Lambton and Kotara.
Candidates:
Zane Alcorn is a 24 year old climate change activist and hip-hop artist in the group Dhopec. He is a member of Resistance and was instrumental in drafting Socialist Alliance's Climate Change Charter. He helped organise the recent Camp for Climate Action and the student architecture competition looking at transitions towards renewable energy production in coal mining communities. He has a Bachelor of Science in Architecture. Zane currently works in hospitality and is a member of the Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Workers Union.
Thomas Cameron is a 19-year-old student at Newcastle University and has studied environmental management at TAFE. Tom grew up in Muswellbrook, where he saw the devastating impact of the coal industry and strongly supports a just transition to clean energy for the region. He is also a member of Resistance and participated in the Camp for Climate Action.
Laura Ealing is a 21-year-old economics graduate. She has been active in environmental and social justice campaigns since she was a high school student, when she began protesting the mandatory detention of refugees. She was a participant in the Camp for Climate Action. Laura currently works tutoring high school students.
Burke tells us why the governing ARENA party is pulling out all the stops in its effort to continue in power in El Salvador. With the 2009 elections coming up early next year the opposition FMLN is showing a twenty point lead in all the polls. The FMLN is not rushing into a radical makeover of the economy - decades of conservative and reactionary rule have made neo-conservative policy institutional structures. Next year's FMLN presidential candidate, Mauricio Funes is proposing moderate reforsm. But in the Latin American context it will mean that El Salvador will join the growing number of Latin American countries liberating themselves from US hegemomy and intervention, with the ability to develop themselves freely away from the the influence and impositions of the IMF the World Bank, and Washington.
The human clock counts down to the end of coal at Climate Camp Australia 2008 in Newcastle. This clip contains footage from a helicopter flying over beautiful Newcastle beaches, the busy harbour and coal terminals, mountains of black coal and finally an inspiring community protest at Climate Camp in a football oval, just over from the Carrington coal loaders.
Giant Garrett, Giant Wong and Giant Rudd go on tour through Southern Tasmania's threatened old growth forests.
Tasmania's publicly owned ancient forests are still being destroyed by Forestry Tasmania and Gunns Ltd. This short film shows 6 months of non violent direct action in Tasmania's Southern Forests between November 07 and April 08.
August 16 was “Super Saturday” of campaign stalls against electricity privatisation in NSW. Around 50 electorates around the state were targeted by Power to the People — a campaign group that includes ALP members, trade unions, Greens, the Socialist Alliance, Solidarity, and other community and environment groups.
Buoyed by opinion polls showing up to 85% community opposition to electricity privatisation, Power to the People aims to build a groundswell of active opposition to the privatisation plan. Premier Morris Iemma’s government planned to get legislation enabling the privatisation through parliament during the last sitting, but failed to win enough support from its own MPs and to meet conditions imposed by the Liberal opposition to secure its support.
In addition to encouraging people to urge their local MP to vote against the privatisation, the Super Saturday campaigners were publicising an anti-privatisation rally to be held outside state parliament on September 20, three days before parliament resumes.
Thirty people protested outside the electorate office of NSW Labor MP Carmel Tebbutt in Marrickville. Speakers at the action included Greens deputy mayor Peter Olive, Socialist Alliance candidate for Marrickville Pip Hinman and ALP member Peter Dodd.
Tom Waits is...Tom Waits. But his version of Brecht/Weill song from The Threepenny Opera rocks (without being anyways rhythm and blues). In the context of spiraling food and energy prices the obscenity of the stock marker -- of the market! -- haunts all of us today.
But hey you can get this song with Tom being spot on in its delivery (and I say that as a registered Brechtian) as a ringtone! How ironic is that?
"First the belly, then morality"
There are a few version in English from the original German, and this lyric carries the phrase:"Food is the first thing, morals follow on." I prefer another English translation which is a favorite saying of mine:"first the belly, then morality."
If you don't know the Threepenny Opera, maybe we can help you here at LeftClick with some more sampling. Unfortunately for the sake of the song you have to put up with the promo video content.
I reckon this version is so darn good -- and I've heard the song sung by many others. Onya Tom! Really scary (in a barbaric capitalism sort of way).
You gentlemen who think you have a mission To purge us of the seven deadly sins Should first sort out the basic food position Then start your preaching, that's where it begins
You lot who preach restraint and watch your waist as well Should learn, for once, the way the world is run However much you twist or whatever lies that you tell Food is the first thing, morals follow on
So first make sure that those who are now starving Get proper helpings when we all start carving What keeps mankind alive?
What keeps mankind alive? The fact that millions are daily tortured Stifled, punished, silenced and oppressed Mankind can keep alive thanks to its brilliance In keeping its humanity repressed And for once you must try not to shriek the facts Mankind is kept alive by bestial acts
Elsewhere in my political universe there's been an attempt to argue that West Papua didn't qualify to be included under the slogan of 'national self determination' leading to nationhood. These are some of my comments from a thread on the GLW eList. The discussion raised 'the problem'(!) that West Papua did not have a national linga franca
So because Bougainville cannot get its polyglot shit together are we then to assume that any pretense to independence and national self determination has to wait until the Bougainvillians -- some 175,160 people -- get the kosher nod from the registered nationhood specialists among us?
The irony is that Bougainville is one of the most linguistically various regions on earth. So no speaker da same -- no right to go it alone?
You'll also find mixed language groups in many regions that have been a tad keen on independence such as....Timor Leste.
[At least sixteen distinct languages are indigenous to East Timor, some of them closely related, others completely unrelated to each other. These can be divided into more than 30 groups of "dialects"].
So should it then follow that until such time as the Scots or the Irish can get all their tongues twisted around Gaelic they are mistaken in their long held desire for independence?
"There are several indigenous languages in Bougainville. These include both Austronesian and Papuan languages.
The most widely spoken Austronesian language is Halia and its dialects, spoken in the island of Buka and the Selau peninsula of Northern Bougainville. Other Austronesian languages include Petats, Solos, Saposa/Taiof, Hahon and Tinputz, all spoken in the northern quarter of Bougainville, Buka and surrounding islands. These languages are closely related. Banoni and Arawa are Austronesian languages not closely related to the former, which are spoken in the coastal areas of central and south Bougainville. All these languages are part of the Melanesian sub group of Austronesian languages.
In the nearby atolls of Mortlock Islands, an Austronesian language of the Polynesian sub group is spoken
The Papuan languages are all confined to the main island of Bougainville. These include Rotokas, a language with a very small inventory of phonemes, Eivo, Buin, Keriaka, Nasioi, Motuna, Usiai and several others. These languages are part of the East Papuan language family.
None of these languages is spoken by more than 20% of the entire population of Bougainville, and the largest languages such as Nasioi, Motuna, Buin and Halia are split into dialects that are not always mutually understandable. For general communication most Bougainvilleans use Tok Pisin as a lingua franca, and at least in the coastal areas Pisin is often learned by children in a bilingual environment. English and Tok Pisin are the languages of official business and government.
Basically, the technical definitions don't tell us everything we need to know.
You bet they don't! I've often thought that the Lenin definition was rather rigid and formalistic.
But it is a complex and important issue.The work that Lev Vygotsky did on language is interesting in this regard. He argues --as a 'historical psychologist' -- that language is a core mediator that both empowered and shaped the human brain such that 'culture' and 'identity' (as a human) was rooted in the acquisition and exercising of language skills.
That seems fine as language is the primary mediator which is utilized to define and name your environment socially. So having one language as distinct from another must therefore be a primary source of one's identity.
Fair enough it seems.
But, of course, it can never be that simple. Dogs have one "language" and a dog from China can communicate seemlessly with another from Botswana or Chile. So groups of dogs, if we were in Animal Farm mode, are very unlikely to get into national self determination despite the fact that greyhounds are separate breed from fox terriers.
My dogs don't care whose butt they sniff. They even think I'm canine.
But the language/identity/'nationality' issue really comes to the fore I think in regard to those among us who are hearing impaired.If you have ever been exposed to Deaf Culture you'll know that communicating with sign rather than with voice is something that sharply defines their language -- of "seeing voices' -- from the language of non signers and hearers. This issue is very politically charged and Oliver Sacks book on the topic (Seeing Voices)is well worth reading in regard to identity, culture and language.
My point is that Sacks -- a dedicated Vygotskian -- embraces signing as a standalone and separate culture and language in the same way that Lenin (& Stalin) would have argued in regard to nationality. And I'd think the Deaf Culture community would agree with that aspect of separation or difference.
The primary languages of those who identify themselves as Deaf are signed. Deaf communities also often possess social and cultural norms that are distinct from those of surrounding hearing communities. So why can't it be said that these Deaf communities have a greater 'right' to self determination than a group of Bougainvillians or West Papuans who speak many different languages but not so much one together that they can call their own?
They share the same language don't they? They are often cross generational too. So on a pecking order who has more 'right'?
So the argument over language becomes a bit schematic does it not? While its evident that localised deaf communities do have their own often enclosed and self contained culture driven by language (and such communities do actually exist where hearers and non hearers all sign)it no way follows that they could share a "national" identity. They have a very strong language identity and cultural one but that's it-- thats' as far as language can take them (despite the oftentimes radical separatism that occurs in the Deaf Culture community).
Nonetheless, in Quebec, where the population is predominantly French-speaking language goes a long way to determining both identity and your right to self determination and separation. (And the traditional Marxist view has been to support Quebec separatism)
That may seem OK in the Marxist sense that has been argued here.
But as I understand it there exists a law that if your mother tongue is French -- regardless of where you live in the world -- you can migrate to Quebec. This is akin to the Zionist credo that if you're Jewish -- Israel is your homeland regardless of where you may live.
Israel does not insist on migrants knowing Hebrew. I'm not suggesting that being Jewish gives a a group automatic right to 'national self determination'(as the Zionists argue) or to kick out Palestinians -- but I point out that there are many horses for courses; and even in the formal instance to rest your argument on the attainment of a national language is to project a very narrow reading of what constitutes the dynamics of nationhood.
No one for instance seems to ask the question that if the East Timorese were so keen to foster national self determination what about those Timorese in the West of the island?
No: nationhood, identity, and the desire for self determination is rooted in the ongoing dynamic of the historical experience of oppression which can in (as it turns out) most instances bring people, from different cultures and languages together.I think thats' so self evident that it hardly warrants being referenced in regard to West Papua or anywhere else.
I've grabbed this post from Miro as it is very relevant to those among us who are keen on watching videos webside. If you want to grab the full offering available make sure you download the excellent Miro player: great search engine. Quality media presentations.Leaves YouTube a long way behind.
Rounding out a recent trilogy ofYouTube-related posts, today I’m going to explain a little bit about finding and making RSS feeds for YouTube content. These tricks can free content that you’ve uploaded and subscribed to, from the confines of the YouTube Universe.
http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.run?YouTubeUsername=[YOUR USER NAME]&_id=58e4f59f9e5e3282aaffdcbaf05ba68d&_render=rss&itemLimit=50
you can get all your YouTube subscriptions in Miro! For those longtime YouTube users who have accumulated a ton of subscriptions in YouTube, this can consolidate everything into one automatically downloaded and open place.
Subscribing to a YouTube User
First, YouTube has explained some of their most basic feeds in a slightly hidden guide on their site. This has some useful tips, like how to subscribe to a given YouTube user’s output (plugging in the user name for [YOUR USER NAME]):
feed://www.youtube.com/rss/user/[YOUR USER NAME]/videos.rss
It also includes links to some meta-categories, like the Featured Videos, which can definitely be interesting.
If you have any favorite RSS tricks, in YouTube or any other video hosting service, let us know in the comments!
Producers want DiCaprio to play Lenin Producers of a new film about Lenin are hoping Leonardo DiCaprio will sign on to play the Communist icon.
They say the Oscar-winning actor looks so much like the mastermind of the communist revolution in his younger years that he could play the role without makeup.
The plot of ‘Lenin’s Brain’ surrounds the resurrection of Lenin by Russian scientists to lead a communist revolution in the U.S. [Source: Russia Today].
My thoughts: a similar plot rests in Maykovsky's 1929 play The Bedbug . Great play that! Tip:Polizeros
This is an incredible modern-day story of a native peoples' victory over Western globalization. Sick of seeing their environment ruined and their people exploited by the Panguna Mine, the Pacific island of Bougainville rose up against the giant mining corporation, Rio Tinto Zinc. The newly formed Bougainville Revolutionary Army began fighting with bows and arrows and sticks and stones against a heavily armed adversary. In an attempt to put down the rebellion the Papua New Guinean Army swiftly established a gunboat blockade around the island. But with no shipments allowed in or out, how did new electricity networks spring up on the island? And how were the people of Bougainville able to drive around the island without any source of petrol or diesel? Watch as the world's first eco-revolution unfolds within the blockade. A David and Goliath story for the 21st century. A multi-award winning documentary«
I posted before on how easy it is to create video -- even good video -- with very limited resources to hand.
It's called editing.
So I've been doing the leg work and some others are also getting passionate about the prospects this simple technology offers: a cheap digital camera with a video setting -- Voila!
Unfortunately the audio on these cameras is pretty rough but if you have another recording device or can create voice or music over you get a sweet mix.
I won't bore you any more with my early experiments but here's a sample despite the fact it was shot indoors at low light. My tricks -- and I'll post them to the Toolkit wiki -- was to attach the camera to a 'monopod' (a tripod with one leg) which was my walking stick with a mini tripod strapped to it.(Get em for $9). This gives you a much more stable shot.
The audio was done on Audacity the excellent free audio editing software which I rely on for podcasting. It was a simple two track record and a play with the Audacity extras. (That's the most difficult part as audio is a much steeper learning curve than video).
In the Socialist Alliance we are sponsoring albeit by baby steps a richer multimedia culture especially in regard to photography and slideshows; Powerpoint presentations; and more and more video. You can watch samples here on SA TV.
If you spend any time on YouTube you'll know that at least we cannot be as bad or as crude as some of the many offerings published there.
We can't wait to start mixing it with the struggle. In the meantime....
Unions standing up for themselves By Tim Gooden (Secretary, Geelong Trades Hall Council)
When does a worker, even a casual or part-time worker, join a union? When it’s clear that membership brings better pay, working conditions and job security.
Why, then, is union membership among workers at an all time low? Because in so many industries union membership doesn’t seem to bring these benefits.
Perhaps it’s because some employers– very few - can pay high wages or maybe workers have been intimidated into not joining a union.
But it’s also because unions simply aren’t always there when workers need them. The major problem is one of union organisation. The 2006 ACTU congress was told that surveys showed that 1.5 million workers would join a union if they were asked.
However where unions are campaigning as with the nurses, teachers and construction workers they are growing.
Which brings us to Work Choices. In its August 5 editorial (“Unions battle for new recruits”) the Advertiser notes that “the union movement is thoroughly unhappy with Kevin Rudd and his sluggishness tearing apart the previous Liberal government’s workplace laws¨, but it doesn’t say why.
It’s because Howard’s laws criminalise basic union organising - the right of entry and the right to take industrial action. These laws have had a much greater impact on union relevance in the eyes of workers than things like the end of payroll deduction of union dues.
Work Choices and other laws threaten unions with massive penalties if they act illegally. And this has been going on for over 25 years in this country. Who can forget Peter Costello’s role with the HR Nichols Society in the Dollar Sweets and Mudginberi disputes or the role of Rio Tinto constantly suing miners in the Weipa and Geraldton disputes?
If unions are really to defend workers’ rights and conditions they often risk breaking the law. Whether it’s fighting an unfair dismissal or closing down a dangerous worksite, going by the legal road can mean losing the dispute.
It’s a stark choice: be law-abiding and irrelevant, or do the right thing to defend workers wages and conditions and risk crippling penalties (remember Brumby’s threats against Victoria’s nurses). The space for legal union action is tiny.
This explains why the employers are determined to hold onto Work Choices. It’s why they relentlessly blackmail the Rudd government with talk about the union threat to investment. It drives the building bosses’ support of the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC), which treats one million building workers as if they are terrorist suspects.
Disappointingly, even though the Rudd government is packed with former union officials it has been far more responsive to employer pressure than to the appeals of the ACTU. By contrast, in New Zealand, a Labor government restored the union right of entry that had been removed by a previous conservative administration. As a result NZ’s Unite union could make big strides in organising young, mainly casual, workers.
In the Australia of 2008 the ability of the union movement to prove its relevance depends on whether it can force the full repeal of Work Choices and related laws (or neutralise them in practice).
That’s why 1500 union delegates met in Melbourne on July 30 to campaign against the charging of Noel Washington, the construction unionist facing a six-month jail term for exercising his right to remain silent and to get rid of all anti union laws.
In effect, the delegates were following the advice of the Advertiser editorial: “It’s time the unions stood up for themselves.”
Finally what’s wrong with 14 year old workers joining unions? If they’re old enough to be ripped off by unscrupulous bosses - and believe me I deal with cases every week. Then they’re old enough to band together and collectively defend their rights. That’s real unionism.
He said the discrimination extends to the government’s refusal to recognise overseas qualifications. “We have some very highly qualified people from overseas in Blacktown working as security guards and cleaners. Meanwhile Australia is importing people from Britain, or the US, to work here as nurses or doctors. We have to establish a way that these people’s qualifications will be recognised.” 
