Vic Bushfires: Birnam Wood comes to Dunsinane

Vic Bushfires: Birnam Wood comes to Dunsinane

By Dave Riley

Today's Victorian bush fire map -- here -- confirms a developing pattern. If the several large out of control fires weren't lit by pyromaniacs and aren't older fires recovering combustion, then urban Australia is at war with its bush -- or it is probably better put the other way around.

I am reminded of the prediction offered by the witches to Macbeth -- that he was safe until "Birnam Wood shall come to Dunsinane".

Of course it does. It climbs out of the forest as cover for Duncan's advancing army.

Whatever way you pitch your metaphors or your riddles,.the urban sprawl of Melbourne presents like a colonial fort besieged by cantankerous flames.

The PR gloss of the national day of morning was way too early especially if the conditions in the bush don't change today, this week, this month or this year.

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World at a Crossroads - Fighting for Socialism in the 21st Century

World at a Crossroads - Fighting for Socialism in the 21st Century

Easter 2009, April 10-13
Venue: Sydney Girls High School, Sydney

REGISTER NOW AT www.worldatacrossroads.org/register

FULL CONFERENCE AGENDA

The full conference agenda is inserted below, or visit the following links to view the various topic streams:

* Global economic crisis
* Climate change & environmental crisis
* Latin American revolution: alternatives to capitalism
* Resisting imperialism & war
* Struggles in Asia and Africa
* Australian radical history & politics
* Left unity: alliances, movement building & revolutionary organisation
* Marxist fundamentals

Hosted by Green Left Weekly. Organised by the Democratic Socialist Perspective & Resistance
For more info, email dsp@dsp.org.au or sydney.resistance@gmail.com, or phone 02 9690 1230

FULL AGENDA

FRIDAY, APRIL 10

9.30am FEATURE SESSION: World at a crossroads — socialism or barbarism

• Reihana Mohideen, feminist and labour activist in the Philippines, leader of the newly formed Party of Labouring Masses
• David Spratt, co-author of Climate Code Red
• Michael Lebowitz, Centro Internacional Miranda in Venezuela, and author of Build it now: Socialism for the 21st century
  

11am – WORKSHOPS:

Sexism and the system: A rebel’s guide to women's oppression - Reihana Mohideen, feminist activist from the Philippines; Kavita Krishnan, national secretary of the All India Progressive Women's Association; and Jay Fletcher, Resistance activist

Challenges of building a climate change movement - David Spratt, co-author of Climate Code Red; Simon Butler, Green Left Weekly journalist on environmental issues and People for a Safe Climate activist

South Korea: A view from the left – South Korean socialist Yongsu Won

Iraq and Afghanistan: The US's unwinnable wars for oil – Alex Bainbridge, DSP; and anti-war activist from the Labour Party Pakistan

Working-class responses to the economic crisis - Jody Betzien, activist in the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union; Roger Annis, activist in the International Association of Machinists in Vancouver, Canada, and delegate to the 2008 Canadian Labour Congress convention

Marx, Engels and Darwin: Evolution and historical materialism - Ian Angus, author of forthcoming book on Darwin and materialism

Understanding Marxist economic theory – Graham Matthews, DSP national executive member and Green Left Weekly journalist on economic issues

1pm – LUNCH

2pm – FEATURE SESSION: Obama, US imperialism and the “war on terror”

• Salim Vally, spokesperson for Palestine Solidarity Committee (South Africa)
• Labour Party Pakistan anti-war activist
• Rob Stary, civil liberties lawyer
• Hosted by Pip Hinman, DSP national executive member and activist in Stop the War Coalition
  

3.30pm – WORKSHOPS:

Public ownership and workers’ control – Dave Kerin, heading up initiative to establish worker-run cooperatives to build solar panels; and Michael Lebowitz on the experiences and lessons of self-management in Yugoslavia and Venezuela

Evo Morales and Bolivia's Indigenous revolution – Federico Fuentes, editor of Bolivia Rising and co-author of MAS-IPSP: A political instrument which emerged from the social movements

Boycott Israel campaign – Discussion hosted by Salim Vally, involved in the recent actions by South African dockworkers to boycott Israeli ships and involving activists in the BDS campaign against Israel

Political struggle in Timor Leste: The global, regional and local context – Tomas Freitas, socialist activist involved in Timor’s clandestine movement against Indonesian occupation and a founding member of Luta Hamutuk (Fight Together), a research and advocacy institute focussing on economic issues

The politics of Che Guevara – Duncan Meerding, Resistance

Understanding the economic crisis A - Jamie Doughney, senior researcher at the Work and Economic Policy Research Unit at Victoria University of Technology

Why be a Marxist today? Introduction to Resistance and the DSP – Resistance activist Mel Barnes and Brianna Pike, DSP Sydney organiser

5.30pm – FEATURE SESSION: Confronting the climate change crisis: An ecosocialist perspective

• Ian Angus, founder of the Ecosocialist International Network, editor of Climate and Capitalism and associate editor of Socialist Voice (Canada)
• Dick Nichols, author of Environment, Capitalism and Socialism, Socialist Alliance national co-convenor
• Hosted by Stuart Rosewarne, co-editor of Capitalism, Nature, Socialism
  

7.30pm Dinner with music, poetry and film footage from struggles around the world

SATURDAY, APRIL 11

9.30am FEATURE SESSION: The spectre of 21st century socialism

• Michael Lebowitz, Centro Internacional Miranda, Caracas, author of Build it Now: Socialism For the 21st Century and Beyond Capital: Marx's Political Economy of the Working Class, winner of the Isaac Deutscher memorial prize (2004)

11am – WORKSHOPS:
Marxism, Islam and national liberation – anti-war activist from the Labour Party Pakistan,
M. Saraswathy, founding member and deputy chairperson of the Socialist Party of Malaysia; and Tony Iltis, DSP activist

Climate refugees and the “overpopulation” debate – Kamala Emanuel, DSP national committee member

Philippines: Developments on the left – Reihana Mohideen, long-term activist in the women's and labour movements in the Philippines, involved in the recent formation of the Party of the Labouring Masses, and formerly vice-chair for international affairs at the socialist labour centre Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino (Solidarity of Filipino Workers)

Haiti today: Five years of UN military occupation – Roger Annis, Canada Haiti Action Network, visited Haiti on a human rights fact-finding mission in 2007

Production and consumption as a source of global warming: Beyond capitalism and toward a democratic ecosocialism - Hans Baer, Development Studies Program and Centre for Health and Society at the University of Melbourne, author of Global Warming and the Political Economy of Health

Understanding the economic crisis B – Dick Bryan, Department of Political Economy, University of Sydney

1pm – LUNCH

2pm – FEATURE SESSION: Building a worker-green-community alliance for sustainability

• Tim Gooden, secretary of Geelong and Regions Trades and Labour Council
• Dave Kerin, convenor of Union Solidarity and heading up initiative to establish worker-run cooperatives to build solar panels
• Mel Barnes, Resistance activist in the Stop the Pull Mill campaign in Tasmania
  

3.30pm – WORKSHOPS:

Indigenous resistance from invasion to intervention – Sam Watson, Aboriginal leader from Brisbane and Socialist Alliance national spokesperson on Indigenous rights; and an activist from the Northern Territory Rollback Intervention Working Group

The struggle for same-sex marriage rights – Simon Margan, Greens gay and lesbian rights activist; Farida Iqbal, DSP activist and campaigner for same-sex marriage rights in the ACT; and an activist from Community Action Against Homophobia, Sydney

The left in Malaysia – M. Saraswathy, founding member and deputy chairperson of the Socialist Party of Malaysia, and long-term organiser of plantation workers, urban settlers and women workers in Malaysia

Crisis and resistance in Africa – Salim Vally, long time anti-apartheid campaigner in South Africa; and Soubhi Iskander, Sudanese Communist Party

Experiences of left unity: The New Anti-capitalist Party in France and Socialist Alliance in Australia – Sam Wainwright, international observer at the NPA founding congress; and Sue Bolton, Victorian Socialist Alliance and DSP Melbourne secretary.

El Salvador after the elections: Where next for the FMLN? – Activists from the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front in Australia

History of Resistance and the DSP – Resistance activist Mel Barnes and Stuart Munckton, DSP national executive

5.30pm – FEATURE SESSION: Latin America: Revolt, revolution and socialism in the 21st century

• Abelardo Curbelo, veteran of the Cuban revolution, central committee member of the Cuban Communist Party, currently Cuban ambassador to Australia
• Nelson Davila, founding member of Chavez’s Bolivarian Revolutionary Movement (MBR-200), currently head of Venezuela's diplomatic mission to Australia
• Luis Bilbao, long-time socialist activist on the Latin American left, participant in the construction of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela and in the formation of the Union of South American Nations
  

7.30 pm CONFERENCE DINNER & FIESTA
Celebrating revolution: 50 years of Cuban Revolution, 10 years of Venezuelan Revolution. With toasts by Cuba’s ambassador to Australia, Abelardo Curbelo, and Venezuela’s charge d’affaires, Nelson Davila

SUNDAY, APRIL 12

9.30am FEATURE SESSION: Neoliberalism and resistance in Asia

• Kavita Krishnan, Communist Party of India (Marxist Leninist), editor of Liberation, the CPI-ML’s magazine in English, and national secretary of the All India Progressive Women's Association
• Yongsu Won, socialist activist from South Korea
  

11am – WORKSHOPS:

Cultural dissent - The politics of art and resistance - Ian Angus on Racism, resistance and the blues; Jill Hickson from Actively Radical TV; and Phil Monsour, progressive folk singer

Capitalism, agribusiness and sustainable agriculture – DSP members Trish Corcoran, Kate Stockdale and Nick Soudakoff

Has racism always existed? – Resistance activist Dom Hale

Australia’s hidden radical tradition – DSP national executive member Dave Holmes

Understanding the economic crisis C – Dick Nichols, Socialist Alliance national co-convenor

The Cuban economy and Latin American integration – Tim Anderson, lecturer in political economy at Sydney University just returned from Cuba, and producer/director of The Doctors of Tomorrow

1pm – LUNCH

2pm – FEATURE SESSION: Revolution in Venezuela - Communal councils, the workers’ movement and the United Socialist Party of Venezuela

• Luis Bilbao, participant in the construction of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela and in the formation of the Union of South American Nations, founding editor of the Latin America-wide monthly magazine América XXI, and author of 16 books, most recently Venezuela in Revolution: the Rebirth of Socialism

3.30pm – WORKSHOPS:

Young socialists fighting back – Kavita Krishnan, former president of the All India Students' Association (1999-2006); Resistance national co-organiser Jess Moore and high-school activist Felix Donovan

Sustainable cities: The transition to public transport, accessible housing and liveability – Ben Courtice, DSP environment movement activist; and John Rice, Adelaide Ecosocialist Network

Israel, Hamas, Hezbollah and the right of Palestine to exist – Issac Shuisha, Israeli-born Palestine solidarity activist; and DSP member Rupen Savoulian

Argentina: The key to the region - Luis Bilbao, Union of Militants for Socialism, Argentina, author of recently published Argentina as the key to the region

Imperialism, nationalism and financial collapse: The Canadian experience – Roger Annis, associate editor of Socialist Voice, Canada

The Tamil struggle for self-determination - Brian Senewiratne, Sinhalese activist involved for more than four decades in exposing the human rights abuses perpetrated by the Sri Lankan government and Sinhalese militias; author of various books on the Tamil struggle that have been banned in Sri Lanka

Building a revolutionary alternative in Australia today – Resistance activist Mel Barnes and Ruth Ratcliffe, DSP Adelaide organiser

5.30pm – FEATURE SESSION: Revolutionary organising and internationalism in the 21st century

• Peter Boyle, Democratic Socialist Perspective national secretary
• M. Saraswathy, deputy chairperson of the Socialist Party of Malaysia
• Daphne Lawless, Socialist Worker-New Zealand central committee member and editor of Unity journal
  

7pm Resistance gig with funky tunes from Dhopec and others

* Some session times and speakers listed in this agenda may change.

Please visit www.WorldAtACrossroads for the most up to date agenda.

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Irish workers say no to cutbacks!

Irish workers say no to cutbacks!

The trade union movement will today begin to consider its next moves following the success of yesterday's demonstration.
Over 100,000 people took to the streets of Dublin in protest at how the Government is dealing with the recession.
Workers from across both the public and private sectors marched from Parnell Square to Merrion Square to highlight how they're being hit by the economic crisis.
Protestors voiced their anger at the controversial pension levy and the banking scandals.
On Tuesday the Irish Congress of Trade Unions will meet to decide what to do next.

That the once upon a time tiger economy of Europe--would you believe, Ireland's -- is now racked by working class discontent tells us a little something about the epoch we are entering.

It also suggests that maybe our own ACTU could lift its slavish game. What you reckon?

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Victorian bush fires and climate change

Victorian bush fires and climate change

By Dave Riley

I was wondering if any one has hazarded an estimate as to the immediate and long term ecological and climate consequences of the Vic bush fires.

QUESTION:The total amount of biomass burnt and the consequent carbon tonnage emitted?

Reports suggest that the ash will now pollute Melbourne water supply as several key dams are within the bushfire catchment-- Maroondah for one. However, recent CSIRO research indicates that a forest while recovering from a bush fire takes up 20 % more water to sustain regrowth over the NEXT 20 YEARS and so 20% less water is harvested by the catchment for downstream take up. (Research done on the Snowy Mtns burn)

The irony is that places like Marysville included many ferny glens and ancient rain forest stands. Much of that biomass: fuel!

Similarly, ABC radio caught an element not so clear from the TV coverage: in places like Kinglake and Flowerdale many of the homes incinerated were back to nature and 'environmentally sustainable' mud brick style homes. At stake here is not only the long term bush interface that runs as a thread through Australian colonial history, but the culture of the new tree change demographic who argue that they bring back to the land sustainable farming and accommodation practices 'at one' with nature. What good is individual permaculture projects or environmentally friendly house design, for instance,(even with complicated bush fire design principles in place) if the land so cherished is as prone to burning as the rest of the landscape and the fires proceed by spot outbreaks kilometres in advance of the fire front?

The Vic media were bandying around the figure that 1 million animals may have died in the fires.I assume that includes livestock as well as fauna?It is hard to imagine what species could have out run the fire or survived as it came over them. So the ecological significance of these blazes are going to be long term in these areas. Many native animals can live through most fires, but this one was a bit different, I'd think.

And while there is a commitment to rebuild these townships surely there is going to be both a major cultural and financial shift. Not only will insurance premiums rise steeply but the resale value of these properties are sure to fall -- and these homes would need to be rebuilt where much infrastructure has been destroyed.

Assuming the location are correctly referenced, today's bushfire map on Google Maps suggest that the continuing outbreak of fires follows a pattern that relates directly to human habitation and urban sprawl.(There are no fires east of Mt Buller and Mt Beauty for instance) In fact its urban sprawl that is the main arsonist rather than individual pyromaniacs.

So I'm suggesting, that the underlying question raised by these fires in a time of galloping climate change -- for Australians -- is shocking indeed such that a major sociological shift may be called for. The floods to the north raise a similar quandary.

There is no bargain to be had with climate change, no little niche you can grab, that will spare your existence from its impact. That in fact, maybe unbeknown to us yet, we may be as vulnerable in many ways as the people of Kiribati.

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Support bushfire relief fund and demand real action on climate change

Support bushfire relief fund and demand real action on climate change

MEDIA RELEASE, February 18, 2009

Activists from the Socialist Alliance & Resistance have been in the streets this week helping to raise funds for Victoria’s bushfire victims. At the same time they are campaigning for urgent action to curb climate change to help avoid such catastrophic events in the future.

Chris Williams, convener of Socialist Alliance in Wollongong said: ‘It’s clear these devastating bushfires are linked to changing climate. By bringing more frequent and extreme hot weather events, and increasing the likelihood of droughts, climate warming now promises to make really severe bushfires much more frequent.

‘The raging inferno in Victoria came after more than a week of record or near record temperatures across much of South Eastern Australia. On February 7, the town of Hopetoun recorded Victoria’s highest ever temperature of 48.8 degrees Celsius. Melbourne set a new record of 46.4 on the same day. Prior to February 7, Melbourne had 35 days without rain, the second-longest period ever recorded. No wonder the fires were so ferocious.

This week’s fundraising column of Green Left Weekly – the newspaper produced and distributed by members of both organisations – is devoted to assisting the Victorian Bushfire Appeal run by the Red Cross.

‘Solidarity is needed right now so please donate to the Bushfire Appeal. But political change is needed too so please join the campaign for real action on climate. The bushfires have proven that climate change is not only a threat to our future but a threat right now. Let’s act now to preserve our environment and save lives and our communities’, Williams concluded.

[To donate to the Victorian Bushfire Appeal call 1800 811 700 or visit http://redcross.org.au/default.asp]

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Dorother Mackellar, the Firestorm and the Deluge

Dorother Mackellar, the Firestorm and the Deluge

By Dave Riley

A considered and conservative report by David Karoly on Real Climate --Bushfires and extreme heat in south-east Australia -- concludes that yes indeed climate is a'changing.

But Karoly doesn't address the ecological irony that as Victoria (still) burns both New South Wales and Queensland are drowning. Dry old Bourke is now a disaster area as the Darling has consumed the town.

This post antediluvian scenario is only missing a plague of frogs...(With such a weather pattern , we'd only get cane toads anyway).

When you look at the satellite picture (right) the land mass looks like its about to be shifted someplace else by dint of climatic forces.

I am reminded of Dorothy MacKellars' nationalistic poem My Country

Core of my heart, my country!
Land of the rainbow gold,
For flood and fire and famine
She pays us back threefold.

and wonder how much pay back presumably exists in this national contract she has so much confidence in. Writing in 1908 (the summer of 1907/08 registered 246 deaths caused from the heat wave in the Southern States) she would have been familiar with the massive ecological consequences of the Federation Drought (1896-1901) which totally altered the colonization pattern of Australia as the sheep and wheat belt was massively rolled back for lack of pasture and water.

Dust blown from Australia was turning snow on the mountains along the spine of New Zealand's South Island red.

The Federation Drought signaled a major climate shift across eastern Australia from the wet period of the nineteenth century to a dry spell lasting until the middle 1940s (the Good Friday fires were in 1939) and generally has continued through the post war period but more starkly over the last 25 years -- going back to the Ash Wednesday fires of 1983.

For today's experience, Wikipedia now has an excellent summary of the Victorian Fires this month.

When you check out the figures for worst disasters in Australia's history -- while these February fires top the bush fire death toll, the figures for numbers dead due to heat wave are frightening:

1939.......438
1895/96.....437
1907/08..... 246
1920/21....147
1911/12... 143+
etc...

Then there is 2009 Southeastern Australia heat wave. Nine day heatwave with Adelaide recording a record six consecutive days over 40 °C (104 °F) and a record high of 45.7 °C (114.3 °F) with a record overnight minimum of 33.9 °C (93 °F) on January 28. So far, 126 have died so far from the heat alone -- and this in the era of air conditioning, electric fans, refrigerators, trips to the beach or ambient air shopping towns and social services.

Much as I smirk at the sentimental nationalism in MacKella's poem -- a rote nationalism every child in primary school had to learn --on this re-reading I recognise that she did in indeed have a feel for the massive ambivalence the climate imposes on those who live here:

I love a sunburnt country,

A land of sweeping plains,

Of ragged mountain ranges,

Of drought and flooding rains.

I love her far horizons,

I love her jewel-sea,

Her beauty and her terror

The wide brown land for me!

"Her beauty and her terror!" Terror is hardly an attribute that is bandied about in standard chauvinistic parlance. People do not normally say," Quite. But then I'm frightened of my country. It scares the begeebers out of me!"

But if MacKellar can write these lines after the experience of the Federation Drought (she began writing the poem in 1904) what sort of relationship are we now entering into with this land and the weather that wafts over it?

We now know that there is a demon loose and feral in the South Pacific -- the El Niño-Southern Oscillation -- but do we truly comprehend its awesome power for chaos, especially in the context of a major world wide climatic shift? As Mike Davis has pointed out -- - Imperialism, El Nino and the Third World -- this is the stuff that changes history and destroys civilisations.

So when I look at the firestorm that was Victoria on February 7th. I am in awe and scared shitless. If you don't understand what I'm on about, go now and watch the fire storm footage captured in the Four Corners documentary .

I've seen fires but nothing like that and while video won't expose your flesh to radiant heat and your lungs to smoke, these images also don't give you any idea of the sound -- except for one survivor's comment,"it was like 10 Jumbo jets taking off."

Imagine that coming at you at 80 kmh per hour....

So yes, let's be very wary of this country's potential to foster "terror" in the heart's of its inhabitants in this epoch of galloping Climate Change!

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Democracy wins in Venezuelan referendum

Democracy wins in Venezuelan referendum

A statement from the Australia–Venezuela Solidarity Network

February 17, 2009

On Sunday February 15, Venezuelans voted in a referendum to change the country’s constitution to allow elected officials to re-stand for election without restriction. Previously, Venezuela’s constitution allowed elected officials, including the president, to stand for only two terms.

With 94.2% of the votes counted, the National Electoral Council announced that the “Yes” vote had won with 6,003,584 votes (54.36%). The “No” vote received 5,040,082 votes (45.63%). Dozens of election observers from international bodies such as the United Nations and the Organization of American States verified that the referendum was free and fair.

The constitutional change allows Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez Frias to stand for re-election in 2012. At a media conference soon after the results were released, the US-backed right-wing opposition – which had run a campaign of lies, intimidation and violence in the lead-up to the vote - reluctantly accepted the outcome.

The victory of the “Yes” vote bolsters support for the newly formed United Socialist Party of Venezuela, which played a central role in the “Yes” campaign, and for measures towards establishing Venezuelan sovereignty and social justice. This assertion of the right of Venezuelans to elect whoever they choose to govern the country is also an assertion of the majority of Venezuelans’ desire for the Bolivarian revolution, currently symbolized and led by Chavez, to continue.

Soon after the results where announced, hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans gathered in the streets of central Caracas and outside the “Balcony of the People” at the Miraflores Presidential Palace to hear Chavez speak and join the celebrations.

“This victory belongs to all the Latin American peoples, it is our America. It is a really historic victory”, Chavez declared, adding that he had received a message from former Cuban President Fidel Castro saying that the vote “is a victory impossible to measure due to its magnitude”.

Chavez told the people, “Here I stand firm. Send me the people, as I shall obey them. I am a soldier of the people, you are my bosses.” He added: “We must dedicate ourselves to consolidating what we have achieved in the past 10 years of revolution... [this] will include revision, rectification, adjusting and strengthening the gains of the Venezuelan people... We need to strengthen the social missions and soon we will be in a better situation from 2010 to open up new horizons and new spaces.”

Chavez emphasised that the people must lead in this process: “This democracy must be more and more revolutionary, authentic, participative and popular.”

The Australia-Venezuela Solidarity Network congratulates the people and government of Venezuela on this victory for democracy, and reaffirms our solidarity with the struggles for sovereignty, justice and socialism of the 21st century that the referendum result has mandated.


Australia-Venezuela Solidarity Network

PO Box 5421 CC, Melbourne 3001

info@venezuelasolidarity.org

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Sri Lankan Crisis Statement

Sri Lankan Crisis Statement

Despite international calls for a cease-fire, the conflict in Sri Lanka continues to escalate.

The district health official in the conflict zone has stated that 40-50 Tamil civilians are dying each day. Most recently the Sri Lankan government issued orders to doctors and other health staff to leave the conflict area immediately.

In an attempt to put an urgent stop to the humanitarian catastrophe, a group of young Tamil Australians have written a ‘Sri Lankan Crisis Statement’ for the wider Australian community to sign.

From 2 March 2009 we will take it to the media and the Australian government to raise our concern for this largely unreported war.

If you want to sign this statement, please leave a comment on this page or email fastuntoaction@hotmail.com as soon as possible with your name and title.

Please forward it to other contacts who maybe interested in signing this statement.

[Download Statement for printing]

STATEMENT

We are Australian citizens who share a deep concern about the escalating civilian crisis in Sri Lanka.

We call on the Australian government to demand the Sri Lankan authorities and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam declare an immediate ceasefire.

We are deeply concerned about the lack of medical staff and aid agencies serving the estimated 250,000 civilians trapped in the conflict zone. In September 2008, the Sri Lankan government evicted United Nations and international aid agencies from these areas.

While the local Red Cross is still operating within the conflict area, their presence is threatened by the ongoing conflict. The departure of international witnesses within the conflict area will remove accountability for all parties to the conflict.

The Sri Lankan government has also issued orders to doctors and other health staff to leave the conflict area immediately.

We demand the Sri Lankan government allow international monitoring and medical and aid agencies unrestricted access to the conflict zones immediately.

In direct violation of the Geneva Convention, civilian hospitals in the conflict zones have repeatedly come under aerial bombing and shelling. Furthermore, on 2 February 2009 the Sri Lankan Defense Secretary Gotabaya Rajapakse stated that everything outside a government declared safety-zone is a military target and no exception will be given to medical facilities.

We urge the Australian government to demand the Sri Lankan government stop the aerial bombing of hospitals and both parties cease placing civilians in direct cross fire in all areas. Foreign and domestic media have been banned from entering the conflict zones since January 2008, when the government unilaterally withdrew from a cease-fire and commenced its military offensive. Without independent reporting, it is impossible to separate fact from propaganda mitigated by all parties to the conflict.

We call on the Australian government to pressure Sri Lankan officials to permit independent journalists unrestricted access to the conflict zones.

Furthermore, we recognise that the Tamil citizens of Sri Lanka have been subject to ethnic discrimination by successive Sri Lankan governments since Sri Lanka gained independence in 1948.

We acknowledge that all people, including the Tamils, have the right to self-determination and must freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.

We acknowledge that a military solution to this conflict will not bring lasting peace to Sri Lanka.

With the intention of ensuring long-term peace, we call on the Australian government to lead political negotiations that recognise the legitimate aspirations and protects the human rights of all Sri Lankans.

Signatories:

• Wendy Bacon, Professor of Journalism, University of Technology, Sydney
• Chris Nash, Professor of Journalism, Monash University
• Antony Loewenstein, Independent journalist and author
• Damien Kingsbury, Associate Professor, Deakin University

If you want to sign this statement, please leave a comment on this page or email fastuntoaction@hotmail.com as soon as possible with your name and title.

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Tamil Protest in Brisbane, Australia, February 4th, 2009

Tamil Protest in Brisbane, Australia, February 4th, 2009

Click to Play

The Tamil minority in Sri Lanka is now under savage military attack and the Sri Lankan army advances on the Tamil Eelam provinces, indiscriminately slaughtering Tamils who mainly live on the north and east of the island.

This is a video record of a protest organised by Brisbane's small Tamil community on February 4th -- Sri Lankan Independence Day.During the same period thousands of Tamils had mobilised around the world especially in England and Canada.Similar protests were held in Sydney, Perth and Melbourne.

For background information on the situation in Sri Lanka for Tamils go here .

Formats available: Quicktime (.mov)

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In regard to the slanders against me

In regard to the slanders against me

By Dave Riley

For the past five years I have been intermittently slandered by members of various tendencies on the left here in Australia. While I can't do very much about those despicable cowards who actively and aggressively malign me in private conversation, three people have been the source of published slanders against me: Steve Painter ( a member of the NSW Greens) , Mark Lockett ( a member of Solidarity) and Peter Murray ( a member of the Freedom Socialist Party).

I don't want to pursue this issue to the nth degree and get caught up in the petty, factional and conspiratorial world of these small minded sectarians but I do want to archive my last response on the matter especially as the web is a brutal search engine and such sites like Bob Goul'd's Ozleft wallow in slander and innuendo in regard to the matter of the Socialist Alliance and have never offered me any right to reply to any of the slanders the site has published about me.

This is a rather disgusting window into how some groups and individuals engage in personal assassination in the name of advancing their political perspectives

*****************************

Eventually Dave decided to join the DSP. I have no inside information about the date on which he took this decision. But when SA conference delegates voted to elect him onto the SA national committee, they were well aware of his views on the way forward for SA, which were similar to those of the DSP. -- Chris Slee


Thankyou Chris for your comradeship. (And Peter for asserting some respect in this exchange).

I had no control over what the DSP said (nor over what inner party factionalist recall) within the DSP in reference to me as I was not a member of the DSP nor did I attend any of its internal meetings for years prior to rejoining in late 2005.

Did I collaborate with the DSP? You bet I did! because the DSP membership were the best Alliance builders, the most committed to creating a new party out of the gaggle of elements that made up formation.They were absolutely committed to the Alliance as much as I was and there was no way the Alliance could be built without working with the DSP membership.

My location in the Socialist Alliance between 2003 and late 2005 was one where I was being sought out and consulted by both the DSP and the Non Aligned Caucus.

Everyone knew where I was coming from in terms of my past association with the DSP and all my perspectives were argued for either vocally by myself (and no other) at successive National Executive meetings and within the pages of Alliance Voices.My views were well known. For good or ill, that's all my own work and I was very vocal in advancing my POV -- a POV that was developing as my experience of the Alliance became richer.

But instead of arguing against the political positions I advanced, the preferred response was to malign me as a DSP stooge. In fact anyone who actively agreed with the general perspectives of advancing the Alliance as a new broad left political party, a multi tendency socialist party, was inevitably denigrated either as a member of, or a stooge of, the DSP.

We had SA meetings here in Brisbane where leaders of one of the small affiliates went around the room bullying every comrade present by accusing them individually of being a DSP member. In one local meeting I was abused by an ISO leader because I had owned up to visiting the Activist Centre between meetings.

This warped political debate in the Alliance and many comrades kept their heads down and mouths shut for fear of being so baited. In fact this heated factional climate drove many comrades out of the Socialist Alliance and the ongoing dispute was stifling the SA's day to day activity and trajectory.

My particular burden was that I didn't buckle under to that pressure. And my burden now is that I'm still wearing the consequences of my stance.

What about the 'Non Aligned Caucus'?

The NAC only had a formal existence in preconference periods in the lead up to the 2003, 2004 and(I assume) 2005 conferences of the SA. It had no formal structure, existed hardly beyond the one 2003 manifesto and was run, (2003/2005) by an ab hoc steering group of four.If indeed I was on it, then I was a casual fifth wheel. If people rang me up I'd say what I thought. If I was supposedly a DSP stooge then more fool them -- perhaps they hadn't been listening to what the small affiliates were saying about me.

While it initiated the original document and secured all the signatories, NAC was not able to organize those who had signed the 2003 statement which called for the Alliance to advance towards a multi tendency socialist party.It was rather a national tendency that existed only or primarily at conference periods.

But the original NAC perspectives outlined in the 2003 manifesto had been more or less achieved at the 2004 conference. Nonetheless, the position was advanced coming out of that conference that the NAC should reform itself into a faction only for 'non aligned members' of the SA. I -- and a couple of other members of the SA -- disagreed with that perspective and we were dropped from the circle ( not formally, but collaboration ceased). ( What was then said about me personally behind my back, I don't know.)

We reasoned that the SA needed another permanent faction like it needed a hole in the head. The small affiliates determined factional alignment against the DSP's integration into the SA , despite overwhelming conference endorsement of that perspective , was draining the project of political focus and energy .

The real task wasn't to encourage further factional alignment, and replicate the chronic entrenched factionalism of the ALP, but the business of day to day politics and for comrades to take responsibility for running the Alliance at all levels.

[For some background on this debate go here for a sample.

However, in the lead up to the 2005 conference I did indeed formally negotiate with the DSP for the specific purpose of drafting changes to national structures. As soon as we finalized our initial draft proposal we published it in Alliance Voices and I later moved it at the conference in conjunction with SA National Convenor (& DSP member) Lisa McDonald. This proposal was carried.

[See conference minutes: Socialist Alliance Discussion Bulletin Vol 5 No 8, June 2005 ]

What followed was the very worse year in the Alliance's history. The political and morale consequences of the Howard re-election in 2004 set in. A major factional dispute developed in the DSP; and among the small affiliates who were democratically elected to national executive by conference the FSP representative ( Peter Murray's org) withdrew after 1 (or 2) meeting(s) and the ISO'er boycotted the national body after 1 meeting. The bulk of the ticket elected by the small affiliates and now split NAC voting block -- had exited the SA National Executive by the end of the year.

Three of the four NAC figures withdrew from the Alliance completely and the DSP had to pull back some of its generous unconditional financial support for the project. After another year the ISO formally withdrew from the SA. So the DSP carried the weight of organising the Alliance's work in partnership with those 'non aligned members' who had not been swayed by the factional heat. Today these comrades (plus others who have joined since) are standardly dismissed as DSP members or DSP stooges -- or, as it is casually argued, that they do not exist.

For my part, I'll be leafleting a local railway station with some of these 'ghosts' from 6am tomorrow morning as part of our election campaign here.

Continue to rest of post... »

Best books lists....

Best books lists....

By Dave Riley

If you a into lists here's one that will stretch you:1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read is a recent aggregation by The Guardian. While I've tended more to read genre fiction -- as we all do tend to -- it strikes me that literary or classical novels aren't treated with the respect I learnt to defer to them.

Even novel reading per se is threatened by digital media and film.

When I left high school my aim was indeed to read 1,000 of the very best Novels Everyone Must Read or some such profound attainment. En route I got sidelined I guess and besides everyone's list keeps changing.

However, changes in educational management have downgraded such quests and I doubt that my own children --of the WWW generation --will ever muster a desire to pursue even a middling version of such a quest.

This one is nonetheless eclectic enough to relate to maybe most of us such that we can tick off what we've consumed and mentally note what we might.

My attainments are in bold.How do you fare?

Leastways we get out of this a few suggestions for next time we search the library shelves. I now keep a running record of my bookshelf on GoodReads.

That way I don't get confused between what I've read, not read and intend to...With more books published everyday and the deference to the classics faltering it's much harder to locate yourself in the "read any good books lately?" paradigm. Among a good portion of the list I'm totally lost as I've never heard of so many of these titles or many of these authors.

Nonetheless some of my favorites sneek in:

• Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
• The Tin Drum by Gunter Grass
• The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens
• The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald
• Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
  

A favorite has to be a book you read more than once.

However there are others here I'd wish I hadn't read.

If I may, while passing, refer you to a quote from Goethe's Faust (and that's another book I've read)which used to inspire me away from solitary bookishness -- because reading aint everything you know. I learnt that early on. So I once upon a time committed this to memory -- when I had such a thing:

Is it not dust that fills my hundred shleves
And walls me in like any pedant hack
Fellow of moth and worm that delves
I drag my life through learned Bric a Brac.
But shall I here discover what I lack
And learn by reading countless volumes though
That mortals mostly live on misery's rack
That happiness is known to but a few.

The Face of Another by Kobo Abe
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
Anthills of the Savannah by Chinua Achebe
The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
Silver Stallion by Junghyo Ahn
Le Grand Meaulnes by Henri Alain-Fournier
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
Death of a Hero by Richard Aldington
Non-Stop by Brian W Aldiss
The Man with the Golden Arm by Nelson Algren
Fantomas by Marcel Allain and Pierre Souvestre
The Mask of Dimitrios by Eric Ambler
Epitaph for a Spy by Eric Ambler
Journey into Fear by Eric Ambler
Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis
Money by Martin Amis
The Information by Martin Amis
London Fields by Martin Amis
Untouchable by Mulk Raj Anand
Foundation by Isaac Asimov
Dom Casmurro Joaquim by Maria Machado de Assis
Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson
Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood
The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
Emma by Jane Austen
Persuasion by Jane Austen
The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster
In the Country of Last Things by Paul Auster
Epileptic by David B
The Bottle Factory Outing by Beryl Bainbridge
According to Queeney by Beryl Bainbridge
Master Georgie by Beryl Bainbridge
Room Temperature by Nicholson Baker
Darkness Falls from the Air by Nigel Balchin
Go Tell it on the Mountain by James Baldwin
Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin
Empire of the Sun by JG Ballard
The Drowned World by JG Ballard
Crash by JG Ballard
Millennium People by JG Ballard
Eugenie Grandet by Honore de Balzac
Le Pere Goriot by Honore de Balzac
La Comedie Humaine by Honore de Balzac
They Were Counted by Miklos Banffy
The Crow Road by Iain Banks
The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks
Consider Phlebas by Iain M Banks
The L Shaped Room by Lynne Reid Banks
Weaveworld by Clive Barker
Darkmans by Nicola Barker
Regeneration by Pat Barker
Nightwood by Djuna Barnes
Flaubert's Parrot by Julian Barnes
A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters by Julian Barnes
A Long Long Way by Sebastian Barry
A Kind of Loving by Stan Barstow
Augustus Carp, Esq. by Himself by Henry Howarth Bashford
The Garden of the Finzi-Cortinis by Giorgio Bassani
Love for Lydia by HE Bates
Fair Stood the Wind for France by HE Bates
Carrie's War by Nina Bawden
The Time Ships by Stephen Baxter
Darwin's Radio by Greg Bear
Fun Home by Alison Bechdel
Malone Dies by Samuel Beckett
Molloy by Samuel Beckett
Vathek by William Beckford
A Legacy by Sybille Bedford
Zuleika Dobson by Max Beerbohm
Oroonoko, or The Royal Slave by Aphra Behn
The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow
More Die of Heartbreak by Saul Bellow
Herzog by Saul Bellow
Humboldt's Gift by Saul Bellow
The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett
The Old Wives' Tale by Arnold Bennett
Clayhanger by Arnold Bennett
Queen Lucia by EF Benson
Trent's Last Case by EC Bentley
G by John Berger
The Poisoned Chocolates Case by Anthony Berkeley
Extinction by Thomas Bernhard
The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester
Lorna Doone by RD Blackmore
The Beast Must Die by Nicholas Blake
The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolano
The Death of the Heart by Elizabeth Bowen
The Heat of the Day by Elizabeth Bowen
The Last September by Elizabeth Bowen
Two Serious Ladies by Jane Bowles
The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles
The Ascent of Rum Doodle by WE Bowman
A Good Man in Africa by William Boyd
An Ice-Cream War by William Boyd
Any Human Heart by William Boyd
The History Man by Malcolm Bradbury
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Lady Audley's Secret by Mary E Braddon
No Bed for Bacon by Caryl Brahms and SJ Simon
Room at the Top by John Braine
When the Wind Blows by Raymond Briggs
A Dry White Season by Andre Brink
Lost Souls by Poppy Z Brite
The Death of Virgil by Hermann Broch
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Vilette by Charlotte Bronte
Shirley by Charlotte Bronte
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
Look At Me by Anita Brookner
Wieland by Charles Brockden Brown
Rubyfruit Jungle by Rita Mae Brown
The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan
Greenmantle by John Buchan
Rogue Moon by Algis Budrys
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
The Coming Race by EGEL Bulwer-Lytton
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
The End of the World News by Anthony Burgess
Earthly Powers by Anthony Burgess
The Neon Rain by James Lee Burke
The Tin Roof Blowdown by James Lee Burke
The Asphalt Jungle by WR Burnett
Evelina by Fanny Burney
A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs
Naked Lunch by William Burroughs
Kindred by Octavia Butler
Erewhon by Samuel Butler
The Way of All Flesh by Samuel Butler
The Sound of my Voice by Ron Butlin
Possession by AS Byatt
The Virgin in the Garden by AS Byatt
The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M Cain
Double Indemnity by James M Cain
Tobacco Road by Erskine Caldwell
The Baron in the Trees by Italo Calvino
Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino
The Influence by Ramsey Campbell
The Outsider by Albert Camus
The Plague by Albert Camus
Auto-da-Fe by Elias Canetti
Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote
Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey
Illywhacker by Peter Carey
True History of the Ned Kelly Gang by Peter Carey
The Kingdom of this World by Alejo Carpentier
The Hollow Man by John Dickson Carr
A Season in Sinji by JL Carr
The Harpole Report by JL Carr
A Month in the Country by JL Carr
The Hearing Trumpet by Leonora Carrington
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There by Lewis Carroll
Wise Children by Angela Carter
Nights at the Circus by Angela Carter
The Passion of New Eve by Angela Carter
Mister Johnson by Joyce Cary
The Horse's Mouth by Joyce Cary
The Professor's House by Willa Cather
My Antonia by Willa Cather
A Lost Lady by Willa Cather
One of Ours by Willa Cather
Journey to the End of the Night by Louis-Ferdinand Celine
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
Monkey by Wu Ch'eng-en
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon
The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler
The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler
No Orchids for Miss Blandish by James Hadley Chase
The Wapshot Chronicle by John Cheever
The Man who was Thursday by GK Chesterton
The Riddle of the Sands by Erskine Childers
The Awakening by Kate Chopin
And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie
The Murder at the Vicarage by Agatha Christie
The Secret Adversary by Agatha Christie
Childhood's End by Arthur C Clarke
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
Les Enfants Terrible by Jean Cocteau
What a Carve Up! by Jonathan Coe
Disgrace by JM Coetzee
Waiting for the Barbarians by JM Coeztee
The Vagabond by Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette
Claudine a l'ecole by Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette
Cheri by Sidonie-Gabrielle Collette
The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins
Manservant and Maidservant by Ivy Compton-Burnett
The Manchurian Candidate by Richard Condon
Hello Summer, Goodbye by Michael G Coney
The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad
Under Western Eyes by Joseph Conrad
Victory: An Island Tale by Joseph Conrad
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad
Nostromo by Joseph Conrad
Sharpe's Eagle by Bernard Cornwell
Postmortem by Patricia Cornwell
Girlfriend in a Coma by Douglas Coupland
Microserfs by Douglas Coupland
The History of Pompey the Little by Francis Coventry
Being Dead by Jim Crace
Quarantine by Jim Crace
The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane
The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton
Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton
The Case of the Gilded Fly by Edmund Crispin
Just William by Richmal Crompton
Poetic Justice by Amanda Cross
House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski
Pig Tales by Marie Darrieussecq
The Mandarins by Simone de Beauvoir
The Princess of Cleves by Madame de Lafayette
The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Roxana by Daniel Defoe
Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe
The Ipcress File by Len Deighton
Bomber by Len Deighton
The Provincial Lady by EM Delafield
The Einstein Intersection by Samuel R Delaney
Underworld by Don DeLillo
White Noise by Don DeLillo
Last Seen Wearing by Colin Dexter
The Remorseful Day by Colin Dexter
Ratking by Michael Dibdin
Dead Lagoon by Michael Dibdin
Dirty Tricks by Michael Dibdin
A Rich Full Death by Michael Dibdin
Vendetta by Michael Dibdin
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K Dick
The Man in the High Castle by Philip K Dick
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens
Martin Chuzzlewit by Charles Dickens
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
Bleak House by Charles Dickens
Dombey and Son by Charles Dickens
Hard Times by Charles Dickens
Little Dorritt by Charles Dickens
Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
Deliverance by James Dickey
Jacques the Fatalist and his Master by Denis Diderot
Play It As It Lays by Joan Didion
Camp Concentration by Thomas M Disch
Sybil or The Two Nations by Benjamin Disraeli
Berlin Alexanderplatz by Alfred Döblin
The Book of Daniel by EL Doctorow
A Fairy Tale of New York by JP Donleavy
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Notes from the Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky
USA by John Dos Passos
Three Soldiers by John Dos Passos
My New York Diary by Julie Doucet
South Wind by Norman Douglas
A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle
The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle
The Sign of Four by Arthur Conan Doyle
The Commitments by Roddy Doyle
The Millstone by Margaret Drabble
An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
Sister Carrie by Theodor Dreiser
My Cousin Rachel by Daphne du Maurier
The Parasites by Daphne du Maurier
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
The Lover by Marguerite Duras
My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell
Justine by Lawrence Durrell
The Pledge by Friedrich Durrenmatt
The Bamboo Bed by William Eastlake
The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco
Ennui by Maria Edgeworth
Castle Rackrent by Maria Edgeworth
Middlemarch by George Eliot
Silas Marner by George Eliot
Adam Bede by George Eliot
Daniel Deronda by George Eliot
The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot
American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
The Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
LA Confidential by James Ellroy
The Big Nowhere by James Ellroy
A Quiet Belief in Angels by RJ Ellory
Cheese by Willem Elsschot
Silence by Shusaku Endo
The Gathering by Anne Enright
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
Under the Skin by Michel Faber
The Siege of Krishnapur by JG Farrell
Sanctuary by William Faulkner
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks
Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding
Joseph Andrews by Henry Fielding
Tom Jones by Henry Fielding
Caprice by Ronald Firbank
The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald
Tender is the Night by F Scott Fitzgerald
The Blue Flower by Penelope Fitzgerald
Bouvard et Pécuchet by Gustave Flaubert
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
Sentimental Education by Gustave Flaubert
Casino Royale by Ian Fleming
Goldfinger by Ian Fleming
You Only Live Twice by Ian Fleming
Everything is Illuminated by Jonathon Safran Foer
Effi Briest by Theodore Fontane
The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford
Parade's End by Ford Madox Ford
The Sportswriter by Richard Ford
Independence Day by Richard Ford
The African Queen by CS Forester
The Ship by CS Forester
Howards End by EM Forster
A Room with a View by EM Forster
A Passage to India by EM Forster
The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth
The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles
The Magus by John Fowles
The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
Flashman by George MacDonald Fraser
Towards the End of the Morning by Michael Frayn
Spies by Michael Frayn
Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier
Hideous Kinky by Esther Freud
The Recognitions by William Gaddis
American Gods by Neil Gaiman
The Snow Goose by Paul Gallico
The Man of Property by John Galsworthy
The Beach by Alex Garland
Red Shift by Alan Garner
Mary Barton by Elizabeth Gaskell
Ruth by Elizabeth Gaskell
Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell
North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
The Polygots by William Gerhardie
Sunset Song by Lewis Grassic Gibbon
Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
Neuromancer by William Gibson
The Immoralist by Andre Gide
The Vatican Cellars by Andre Gide
Strait is the Gate by Andre Gide
The Counterfeiters by Andre Gide
Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
The Odd Women by George Gissing
New Grub Street by George Gissing
The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang Goethe
Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
To The Ends of the Earth trilogy by William Golding
The Vicar of Wakefield by Oliver Goldsmith
Oblomov by Ivan Goncharov
July's People by Nadine Gordimer
Mother by Maxim Gorky
Asterix the Gaul by Rene Goscinny
The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
The Tin Drum by Gunter Grass
Count Belisarius by Robert Graves
Lanark by Alastair Gray
Brewster's Millions by Richard Greaves (George Barr McCutcheon)
Living by Henry Green
Squire Haggard's Journal by Michael Green
Love on the Dole by Walter Greenwood
The End of the Affair by Graham Greene
Brighton Rock by Graham Greene
A Gun for Sale by Graham Greene
The Ministry of Fear by Graham Greene
The Third Man by Graham Greene
Our Man in Havana by Graham Greene
Travels with My Aunt by Graham Greene
The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene
A Time to Kill by John Grisham
The King of Torts by John Grisham
Life and Fate by Vassily Grossman
Diary of a Nobody by George Grossmith
The Little World of Don Camillo by Giovanni Guareschi
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon

Continue to rest of post... »

Climate Change and the Australian bush fires.

Climate Change and the Australian bush fires.

by Dave Riley

[I haven't got the time today to bash these comments into a coherent post format, but I'll copy/paste them from where I invested them and come back later to edit the topic into a more useful form. And besides I've been asked to do it]

#1: The role of climate change

I'm not sure if the SP here are on the exact same page as the rest of Australia on this issue.Maybe they should study Climate Change with a bit more thoroughness than the way they've handled the topic in this article.

This primarily is a climate disaster and that disaster has roots , of course, in the capitalist system.

Sure services have been cut in regard to the CFA and these communities but, the main thing to note is that nothing could have stopped these fires.

That's the most devastating aspect. We have the death toll to prove the point that people who knew what was at stake as the inferno bore down on them, still perished.These people weren't fools or being careless.I'd guess that most could have died before the fire reached them, because the fire front would advance behind a massive radiation envelope driven by searing winds. This is how the fires jumped valleys.

You only have to look at these towns with twisted and melted corrugated iron to note that this was a sort of organic Ground Zero in action.

But in my state,Queensland, the Northern Tropics are flooded at the exact same time as Victoria burns. 60 % of the state is a declared disaster area because of the floods.

Bushfire management is complicated by the fact that the Australian bush has evolved to burn. Eucalyptus oil, for instance, found in every gum tree, is a powerful combustible. As Germaine Greer says , the indigenous population managed the landscape with fire but management can only go so far in way of amelioration when the droughts are more frequent and summer temperatures are rising.

The other factor is that the bush has been rolled right back by farmland -- so there's not an exact equivalent in the way she suggests. Nor is Australia, " a country covered with bush " as the SP says.

Land clearing has been massive in the past 200 odd years.For instance, in 1869, 88% of Victoria was forested (around 20 million ha.) but by 1987, 35% of Victoria was forested (around 8 million ha.)Today it would be even less.

My relative's farm in Yakandandah was spared yesterday by a dropping of the wind, but there's every likelihood that as conditions change that the fires could flare up again and the whole district will be at risk as it was on Sunday night.

As for the CFA...Like the Surf Life Saving Clubs across Australia -- the Country Fire Authority is a remarkable exercise in volunteerism. While it may seem politically proper to call for it to be professionalised that's not quite how the thing works as it is an exercise in community organising on a massive scale.

These volunteers should be given a wage --for their training time and call outs -- but the motivation is deeper than renumeration and it cannot simply be reduced to dollar value.

Nonetheless, there is a crisis in the CFA as a direct result of the impact of neoliberalism where familes are working longer hours and have less free time to invest in their local CFA brigade(Australia has some of the longest working hours in the Western World). More than likely these same people are wearing a massive mortgage in places, now burnt out, like Lake Mountain and Wittlesea.This is especially the case in regard to executive positions like brigade captains. That's where the administration crisis really kicks in.

Across Australia 220,000 volunteer firefighters are ready to protect our lives and property. If we had to pay them for their time, it would cost us something like $2 billion a year, but it's getting harder to attract them, and harder to keep them. Debates rage about hazard reduction burns, about whether people should stay in their houses or just get out, and about insurance levy issues. Reporter Jane Shields.

While there is sure to be a lot of chatter about the fires in way of future strategies, it's worth while noting that every time the bush is burnt, plant regrowth calls on up to 20% of available precipitation and ground water for the next 20 years to sustain the growth. This also means that less water freed from the catchment and the already thirsty river systems flow with reduced volume to any dam or irrigation network -- and the massive water crisis in Victoria (as all over Australia)worsens still more. Reference:

Paul Willis: I found it surprising when I got into this story that it was completely counterintuitive and what a massive effect it has on the environment of the whole Murray Darling system. In a nutshell what I looked at was the way that fires in the Snowy Mountains, when they wipe out the vegetation and wipe out the forests, as those forests grow back they take out water from the environment that would normally flow into the rivers, and we're talking about something like 20% of the water that would normally go into the river go into the growing forest, and this effect last for about 30 or 40 years

So this is a very vicious circle in way of the long term impact of Climate Changes.

See also:Meltdown, fires as climate emergency hits Australia: Urgent action required

#2: Default politics on the far left

The reference to Socialist Alternative also raises the same question as does the SP piece: the failure to address the over riding issue of Climate Change and chart its political as well as ecological significance. The left isn't greened up -- in fact it tends to be schematically blind to the significance of the issue in terms of campaigns and analysis.

I think it's the same in the UK too as far as I can judge.

Any left that fails that test loses a essential engagement with everyday political reality, a broad audience and organising potential. This isn't about counterposing class to climate nor of ignoring the over riding impact of capitalism on our existence.

I didn't say that the SP wasn't on the same page as the rest of the Oz left. I suggested it was isolating itself from a major political dynamic within the whole population -- the impact of climate change -- by failing to truly note its relevance.

The far left here, outside my own sector of alignment, simply fails to aggressively address that issue in terms of campaigning and the like.

The weekend before these fires saw a major Convergence in Canberra that established a national climate change movement with an agenda set for the year ahead. This was a major step forward in environment politics

We occupy its anti capitalist left wing along with a few other green lefts sprinkled across orgs , grassroots committees and academia.

So what I'm saying is that the far left has a choice to either engage with this issue or default on it. And while everything the SP or SAlt says about capitalism and spending is true, the argument becomes an either/ or one of displacing (perhaps inadvertently) the significance of the climate issue -- as though climate change is just another capitalist excuse for state irresponsibility.

I've been in bushfires and I know what they are like and I suggest that this one like so many others was simply unstoppable. Firefighting only really contains fires and shifts their paths. Conditions -- fuel and weather primarily -- decide when they die out.

Such is the awesome power of Nature.

And fires are an ecological reality in the Australian bush as the flora has evolved to burn.

On the question of arsonists -- the latest research does suggest that half of bush fires are deliberately lit. But what about the other half? This is the forensic complication of humans living and working in the bush because it is so very easy to spark an inferno like this: cigarette ash, broken bottle focusing sunlight, lightning strike, car backfire, etc.

This reminds me not so much about handy 'excuses' but the sort of humanity versus nature arguments that Marx and Engels so acutely explored. A relationship that has been expanded and updated so well in the works of John Bellamy Foster.

So this is indeed a Marxist issue that is more than simply a question of class. To not see that and explore that dialectic, only causes your analysis to be shallower.

Already trade unions are taking up collections on the job and sponsoring fund raising efforts to support the devastated families made homeless and losing members in these fires. This isn't nationalism as the SAlt article seems to suggest .This is solidarity as all working people can relate to this devastation.

So my point is that this is overwhelmingly a climate change issue unfolding in the context of capitalism. These fires, in effect, more so than the ones that burnt Canberra a few years back, absolutely put climate change as one of the major issues in this country-- alongside that of the economy. This occurs when all governments here pander to the mining companies, pulp mills, big agri business, and the like and fail resolutely to seriously address the issue.

There is a view on the far left which argues that environmental issues can be accommodated under capitalism and that , in effect as it is a bias,green politics is anathema to class consciousness.

OK. Fine. Dream on comrades.But I suggest these fires tell us that we're somewhere where Luxembourg said we had clear choices between socialism or climatic annihilation.

#3: Urban sprawl and the bush

One final point on the question of class.

The Australian suburban sprawl now advances as relentlessly "into the bush" as so often the only housing many working people can afford is located on the urban periphery. To some degree that also gets distributed across regional townships -- such as some of the towns that were destroyed in these fires -- Marysville is an example. A town like Kinglake, still very much under threat, as far as I knew it when I was working on Melbourne's northern edge is part of the peripheral mortgage belt of Melbourne despite its bush locale.

Some of my workmates were living there and paying off their houses with as much overtime as they could muster.

In Sydney this quest for affordable housing is colonising the Blue Mountains as a new urban hub despite the fact that these new semi rural suburbs are over two hours drive from the Sydney CBD.

Nonetheless people will commute these large distances to their place of work for the sake of being able to afford home ownership.Up until the nineties,(before urban renewal schemes were initiated) this phenomenon was so pervasive that cities like Brisbane was becoming something like a doughnut, losing its population to shires at its periphery.In fact Brisbane's population fell for a time. The fastest growing centres in Australia were a succession of outer, semi rural suburbs.

So thats' the interface with the bush that complicates associated desires to live with nature.

Obviously all these communities have fire management practices in place: off season burning, undergrowth and roof gutter clearing, etc. These communities are always on bush fire alert.

This of course complicates the whole Nature/Society interface in various ways. But to give you an idea of how potent that can be, I was in Sydney during the 1994 fires there and it was the most amazing experience of siege.

You could stand in the very middle of this massive metropolis among cafes and retail shops and look down major thoroughfares like Oxford and George Street and see the fires burning -- not just smoke, but flames -- the suburbs along the north western border of the city. Road and rail links to Newcastle to the north were cut. The city to the north and east was surrounded by fires and a fire was also consolidating to the south of the city.

And this was before major climate change factors had been seen to kick in.

In Victoria at the moment, they are talking about building dugouts as refuges in the same way that shelters were utilised during the London blitz.

And the analogy isn't a false one. I think of Slaughterhouse 5 and Dresden as an analogy for the sort of firestorms that are now being created in these climatic conditions.

The air temperature during these Vic fires -- independent of the inferno -- was 47C! With winds gusting over 80 kilometres/hour.

(Some of the figures for these fires are mind boggling as to their speed and massive radiant heat.Another strange occurrence was that these fires' initial ignition advanced often through the tree tops and not the undergrowth.So they moved much faster while airborn like that.)

Before the Victorian events, Adelaide sweltered through a heatwave during which at least 22 people died -- from the heat alone. In Melbourne, the electricity network was overloaded and failed for tens of thousands of homes because of power demands on the grid -- mainly for air conditioning.

While 181 people at least have perished in the fires, the figures for deaths and hospital admissions due to the massive heat and pollution (from the smoke, esp among asthmatics) I haven't as yet seen.

It is this factor that most concerns me in regard to my aged relatives who live in Melbourne.

Next week, the air temperatures are predicted to rise and the northerly winds to increase again.Today the town of Mansfield was spared by a weather change.

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