A-Infos (en) Anarchist Age Weekly Review No. 644 23rd May-29th May 2005

IF ONLY --------- The rancour an disgust that is being felt by many urban and regional
----------- Australians about the generous allowances that are about to be extended by
the Howard government to the 3% of Australians who are farm owners, needs to
be both acknowledged and discussed.  Deregulation of the economy has
benefited agricultural based corporations and disadvantaged family owned
farms that do not employ labour.  The drought is the last straw for many
small farms that have been forced onto their knees by deregulation.
While the rest of the community is told they have to accept economic reality
and have to use any assets they have (apart from their family home) before
they are eligible for social security benefits, the Deputy Prime Minister
wants to quarantine farmer´s non farm assets to protect the transfer of
intergenerational wealth in the rural sector.  It´s interesting to note that
nothing is ever said about people receiving unemployment benefits, single
parents benefits, disability support pensions and old age pensions, when
discussions about the transfer of intergenerational wealth occurs.

If other people lose their jobs, get sick, are frail or old and can´t work,
they have to use up all their assets (apart from the family home) before
they are eligible for social security benefits.  Elderly people who need to
be admitted to a hostel or nursing home have to sell their home in order to
raise the bond that´s required for them to obtain care after a lifetime of
work.  There is no suggestion or discussion that they should be able to keep
their assets and transfer them to their children when they die.

The changes that have been advocated by the Howard government for the 33% of
Australians who rely on social security benefits to survive, will see more
and more Australians being forced off benefits into poorly paid, part time,
dangerous, boring, monotonous work.  They will even be denied the small
amount of social security they currently enjoy under the social security
system.

The majority of small farmers, who now find themselves in a marginal
economic situation, find themselves in that situation because they believed
the government propaganda that deregulation would open up the world´s
markets to them.  Deregulation has meant that the power they were able to
exercise as mutual associations and co-operatives has been destroyed.  They
now find themselves at the mercy of agricultural corporations that can and
do dominate the market place.

Taxpayer´s money would be better served by buying out farmers on marginal
land and small farmers who no longer have a future in a deregulated market
place, than providing short term and aid solutions.  Buying land off farmers
who believe they have no future in a deregulated economy, would permanently
remove that land from the marginal agricultural merry go round.  This would
give the government an opportunity to use taxpayer´s money to rehabilitate
the land and make an impact on the salinity, water and greenhouse emission
problems we need to confront as a community.

NO MORE!!   ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!!
The stories that appeared in The Age (24/5) about Cornelia Rau and Virginia
Naomi Leong highlights the barbarity and inhumanity of laws that have been
enacted by successive Federal governments to deal with people seeking asylum
in Australia.  The application of laws that deny asylum seekers even the
most basic human rights have resulted in an avalanche of stories that make
one ashamed to be an Australian citizen.

The High Court decision that under the Australian Constitution asylum
seekers can be held indefinitely in the most deplorable conditions, has
closed any legal options people are able to pursue to stop this wholesale
denial of basic human rights.  The re-election of the Howard government with
a majority in both Houses of Federal Parliament has greatly diminished the
political options people are able to pursue.  Faced with this impossible
situation, good people need to stand up to stop these terrible things
happening.  The time has come to pursue both extra parliamentary and extra
judicial options to force the Howard government, the Opposition and the
majority of Australians who support these policies to abandon the measures
that are now in place.

It´s time that this struggle, like the struggle against apartheid in the
1970´s and ´80´s, was brought to the attention of the world.  It´s time that
Australians who have exhausted all the judicial and political options
available to them, to challenge the laws concerning asylum seekers to call
on tourists to stop coming to this country, to call on international
students to stop studying in this country and to call on Australia´s trading
partners to stop trading with Australia until Australian laws acknowledge
that asylum seekers have alienable human rights.

A successful international boycott of Australia and Australian products
would force the Howard government and the Beazley led Opposition to rapidly
change their tune about how asylum seekers should be treated in this
country.

CENTRALIST?
Michelle Grattan´s claim that John Howard is a centralist (Sunday Age 22/5
´PM´s Power has States in Spin´) is not news to anyone who has lived through
the Reagan and Thatcher years.  Howard, like Bush and Reagan and Thatcher
before them, has won parliamentary power by using the rhetoric of
deregulation, small government, individual liberty and personal freedom.
These leaders are old fashioned authoritarians who have no hesitation in
using the power they are able to exercise through their control of the State
apparatus to impose their conservative, economic and moral viewpoints on the
people they rule.

The privatisation agendas they have implemented have put the individual and
the community at the mercy of transnational corporations that are able to
exercise a monopoly on economic activity in the US, Britain and Australia.
Their privatisation of the public service has removed the checks and
balances citizens are able to exercise in a parliamentary democracy and in
one generation has transformed citizens into impotent consumers.  Howard´s
rhetoric has never coincided with the reality he has and is pursing.

The Prime Minister will have no hesitation in using the monopoly on power he
is able to exercise after the 30th June to make laws to impose his
authoritarian moral, ethical and economic viewpoints on the rest of the
community.  Howard, Bush, Thatcher and Reagan´s brand of politics in not
new, it´s an extension of the fascist ideology that has plagued the world
for most of the 20th century.  They have succeeded, while the communist and
fascist world failed, because they have successfully been able to present
themselves as ´reformers´ who want to decrease taxes and liberties the
individual from the tyranny of government while doing exactly the opposite.

It´s no surprise that Howard´s term in office has been accompanied by the
removal of common law liberties that people have enjoyed for centuries.
It´s no surprise that power and wealth in the Howard era has been
centralized in fewer and fewer hands and it´s no surprise that the ethical
and moral freedoms people have enjoyed have been curtailed by the use of the
State´s regulatory arm.

Howard´s grip on power is both illusory and real.  It´s illusory because the
Australian Constitution, a Federal Constitution, recognizes the importance
of the Australian States.  It´s real because, although every State and
Territory is governed by the ALP (Alternative Liberal Party), they are not
willing to stand up to a Federal government that, through its power to levy
the GST and personal and company income tax, is able to exercise a great
deal of control over what the States can and cannot do.

FARM LOBBY FIRES UP
Late last century when human beings, not machines, did most of the work on
farms, farm workers were involved in a series of workplace struggles that
made Australia into one of the most egalitarian communities on this planet.
Mechanisation and computerisation has greatly reduced the role of the farm
workers to a peripheral role.  The farm lobby has for the last 50 years been
a bastion of conservative politics.  The National Party (the former Country
Party) continues to represent farming communities across the country.

Australia, a largely urban community, has had a love affair with the bush
which John Howard is not adverse to exploiting.  Over the past few weeks,
the fourth estate has been replete with pictures of drought in what are fast
becoming marginal lands.  Once again, the farming sector has succeeded in
catching the government´s ear.  While the rest of Australia is told to take
their medicine in a deregulated economy, the farming sector has successfully
been able to put their hands out for drought relief.

It seems the deregulation of the economy, the panacea for the country´s
farming sector, is not enough.  When the farming sector falls on hard times,
they expect the taxpayer to pull out all stops to bail them out.  Things are
not what they seem in the farming sector, farming is undergoing a
transformation, more and more marginal family farms are being bought up by
agribusinesses - huge transnational corporations that have the capital to
develop farming land.  The owner farmer like the owner driver is becoming a
thing of the past, as more and more farms are bought by agribusinesses the
demographics of farming are changing.

Agribusiness relies on employees not owner farmers to do the work that needs
to be done.  Agribusiness has some of the lowest pay rates in the country
and is an industry that has little, if any regards for their employee´s
welfare.  The may find that the change in demographics will transform the
farming sector from a bastion of conservatism to a more militant workplace.

Faced with the prospect of a shrinking labour base and the prospect of
increased wages and a more militant attitude among employees, agribusiness
is beginning to campaign to change Australia´s immigration laws so they can
bring in cheap seasonal guest workers to do the work that´s required to
bolster their bottom line.  No wonder the Howard / Anderson government and
agribusinesses are such good mates.

UNDERPANTS?
The London tabloid´s decision to publish a picture passed onto them by
sources within the US military, who believe they can crush the resistance to
the US led invasion of Iraq by humiliating Saddam Hussein, by showing him in
his pristine white underpants, has drawn a mixed response from the public.
What it did show and has hardly been discussed is that Saddam Hussein, like
every other authoritarian leader before him, is just another human being.

People who are able to make and impose decisions on millions of people are
essentially no different to you and me.  The difference isn´t our common
humanity but their ability to control the levers of power; the greater the
centralization of power, the greater damage that an individual can cause.
It´s ironic that most people think anarchists are unrealistic because they
believe in the innate ´goodness´ of human beings.  They think we are stupid
because we want to create a society where power is exercised by the people
not rulers.  They continue to believe their best interests are served by
supporting rulers who are able to exercise power on their behalf.

Who´s living in fantasy land?  Why risk your future and your children´s
future by placing your faith in a ruler.  If you put Blair, Bush and Howard
in their Y-fronted white underdaks, you´d soon realise they´re just one of
us.  Anarchists don´t believe in the innate ´goodness´ of human nature.
They understand the frailties and limitations of the individual, that´s why
they´re not willing to give an individual the power to impose their will on
them.  Anarchists want to abolish both the State and the corporate sector
and replace it with a federation of community and workplace councils that
are based on direct democratic principles and where wealth is held in common
because they understand the damage that can be done by individuals who
control the State apparatus and who use the State´s regulatory arm, the
police and armed forces, to impose their will on society.

Think about it, who´s unrealistic?  Who´s immature? - The person who puts
their faith in a ruler or the person who puts their faith in the ability of
a society as a whole to work out the best outcome for everybody.

ANARCHIST QUESTION AND ANSWER
Q.  WHAT ARE THE ADVANTAGES OF LIVING IN AN ANARCHIST SOCIETY?
A. Everybody in a position of authority loves to talk about the
disadvantages of living in an anarchist society, very few bother to enquire
why people like you and me want to live in an anarchist community.  The
single overwhelming advantage of living in an anarchist society is security.
That´s right, security.  Contrary to the image that´s normally conveyed
about anarchism being mayhem and carnage, the reality is diametrically
opposed to the rhetoric.  The anarchist goal is very simple, to create a
society without rulers, where the people involved in a decision make that
decision.
The challenge facing anarchists is how do you create a community where the
people, not rulers, make and benefit from the decisions that are made?  What
are the advantages of living in such a community?  The problem people face
in most communities is that overwhelming sense of insecurity they are forced
to endure.  While they´re healthy and able to work, they have the disposable
income to buy time and security.  When the money runs out or a ruler decides
that their needs are greater than the needs of the people they rule, things
start to go horribly wrong.
Life in an anarchist society is much simpler and much more secure than any
other type of community.  The individual´s fortunes are tied to the fortunes
of the communities they live and work in.  Their prosperity and security is
intertwined with the prosperity and stability of the society they live in.
Having the power to determine your individual fate and having the assets to
make those decisions a reality, are advantages that people living in an
anarchist society have over people living in hierarchical societies where
wealth and power is held in individual, State and corporate hands, not
directly in the hands of the people.  An anarchist society provides the
structure and mechanisms that gives individuals within that community the
power to determine their own future without having to worry about what will
happen to them if they feel sick, get old, can´t find a job or want to have
a rest.  Their access to that community´s wealth is determined by their
participation in the life of that community, not what they do or own.
The individual´s sense of well being and health is determined by the wealth
and well being of a society as a whole.  While people participate in the
decision making process and accept the idea that access to wealth is
determined by need, not ownership or the power they´re able to exercise,
most people will enjoy a more fulfilling, satisfying and secure life in an
anarchist society than they could hope to achieve in any other community.

ACTION BOX
MEDIA CONFERENCES
Sometimes, you want to get a message across to a wider audience than you are
normally able to access.  In those situations, you have to decide whether
you want to use the corporate media, independent community media or State
run media.  A relatively easy way to do this is to hold a media conference.
Yes, a media conference!!  You need to have an idea about what you hope to
achieve, know your subject back to front and have to be willing to walk into
the lion´s den unarmed. The corporate owned media is not there to do your
bidding, their role is very simple.  They need to maintain the status quo,
even if you know a sympathetic reporter, they have subeditors and editors to
contend with, who need to ensure that the message that eventually gets
through, supports those elements in society who benefit from the status quo.
Taking this into account, media conferences can be very useful exercises in
disseminating ideas.  Even if the media attempts to denigrate and humiliate
you and your ideas, the fact that a new cross section of the community knows
you exist, can play into your hands.  The nuts and bolts are; pick a site
that´s symbolic and also confronts the problem you want to raise.  Holding a
media conference in some conference centre is expensive and a waste of time.
Put out a media release; make sure you have your media conference before
1.00pm.  TV and newspapers have deadlines to meet; having a conference in
the afternoon is a waste of time.  Make sure they receive your media release
at least 48hours before the conference.  Select reporters that you think may
have a specific interest in the subject you want to raise.
I normally post letters about the media conference, faxes and emails tend to
get lost in the avalanche o faxes and mails that media outlets receive.  I
also hand write the person´s name and address on the envelope.  Producers
tend to ignore envelopes with typed addresses.  On the day of the media
conference, get there 10 minutes early, if you have any props, set them up.
If security guards attempt to move you on, hold your ground.  Don´t expect
anybody to turn up.  If one or two people turn up, don´t expect that what
they file will appear on radio, TV, or the newspaper.  Even if nobody has
turned up, your details group name, contact address, email and telephone
number will go into somebody´s media file for future references.
If reporters turn up, remember they´re workers who are filing a story; they
will have to battle subeditors and editors to get a guernsey for the story.
If nothing appears, don´t worry about it; if something appears don´t expect
it to be supportive or sympathetic.  What matters is, that if you are
successful your concerns have been placed in front of people you would never
have been able to influence.  So you´ve got something to say, a campaign to
push, then think about holding a media conference, for the cost of 50 or 60
stamps and a little bit of personal angst, you may be able to influence more
people than heading out leaflets for a lifetime could ever achieve.

AUSTRALIAN RADICAL HISTORY
´SPIRITUALISM´
Forget about all that new age stuff, spiritualism was all the rage among
Melbourne´s radical circles in the late 19th century.  Spiritualism arrived
in Australia in the 1860´s.  William Terry, a Unitarian, became so involved
with the occult he set up a ´spiritual emporium´ in Russell Street,
Melbourne.  Practising as a psychic healer, he sold ouija boards and
Egyptian lentils so he could feed 8 of his 9 children that his wife left
with him, when she could no longer stand him meddling with the occult.  The
new ´religion´ was popular among radicals because it challenged the
hierarchical nature of the traditional churches.  All the spiritualist
needed was a ouija board, a drawing room and a few friends, to cross over to
the other world.
The new movement met at Trades Hall in an attempt to set up an association.
In 1870, they formed the ´Victorian Association of Progressive
Spiritualists´.  Many radicals were interested in the new movement and took
leading rolls in its activities.  Monty Miller, Eureka activist, member of
the Melbourne Anarchist Club and the I.W.W., rubbed shoulders with Bernard
O´Down, the editor of the radical socialist paper ´Tocsin´.  George Mann,
the secretary of the Australian section of Karl Marx´s International Working
Man´s Association was also secretary of the Victorian spiritualists.
The Spiritualists, concerned about the influence established churches had on
their children, set up their own Sunday schools-The Progressive
Spiritualists Lyceum.  In the 1870´s and 1880´s, the spiritualists movement
spread throughout Victoria, Lyceums were set up in Melbourne, Richmond,
Castlemaine, Bendigo, Stawell and many other regional centres.  Alfred
Deakin, one of Australia´s early Prime Ministers, was a lyceum conductor
before he became Prime Minister.  Lyceum conductors guided the lyceums
pupils by teaching them songs, rites, callisthenics and had long
conversations with the pupils about the value of spiritualism.  The
Melbourne lyceum was still holding small meetings in the late 1920´s.  It
seems the wheel has turned full circle, in the late 20th century and early
21st century, many people in a search for meaning, have embraced New Age
thinking that parallels the spiritualist presence in Victoria in the 1870´s
and 1880´s.

SOURCE OF MATERIAL FOR ARTICLE: Progressive Lyceum (pg 204 -207) Radical
Melbourne-A Secret History Jeffrey & Jill Sparrow, Vulgar Press 2001, ISBN
0957735243.

BOOK REVIEW
´BRITISH SYNDICALISM´
Pages of Labour History, 5 Essays on Beating the Bosses-Tom Brown
1st Published 1994, by Kate Sharpley Library Reprinted ´05 ISBN 1 873605 706
This tiny 16-page pamphlet is a collection of five of Tom Brown´s better
articles on British syndicalism. Tom Brown was ´the clearest speaker and
writer the anarcho-syndicalist movement had´.  Working and active in Britain
during the golden years of syndicalism in Spain in the 1930´s, the author
attempted to build a modern anarcho-syndicalist movement in Britain.
This pamphlet begins with one of Brown´s more popular articles ´Syndicalism
and Workers Committees´.  Syndicalism is defined as ´revolutionary
industrial unionism´ based on the formation of unions based on the commodity
made, or the service rendered.  Brown argues that committees can´t attain
´social form and pattern´ unless they adopt the principles of syndicalism.
In the article, ´Syndicalism and Shop Stewards´, Brown asserts that if it
was the syndicalist tendency within the trade union movement that after the
World War One brought the shop stewards and the works committee to the fore
of the British workers movement.  The 3rd article ´Engineering Workers
Fought Back´ looks at the pivotal role engineers have played in the British
Labour movement.  ´Fighting for 9-hour Day´ outlines that workers obtained a
shorter working week through direct action, not political action and finally
in the essay ´Trafalgar Square and the Free Speech Fight´ the author looks
at the importance of free speech in social and workplace struggles.  Brown
pours scorn on the idea that free speech in England was given to the workers
by the government.  He catalogues the arrests, the trials for sedition, the
police baton charges and the deaths that occurred in the struggle that
forced the government to grant workers free speech in Hyde Park, Trafalgar
Square and on every street corner in Britain.
´Free speech came the hard way.  It could go the easy way´.
These 5 interesting little essays on syndicalism have been cobbled together
in one tiny 16-page pamphlet by the Kate Sharpley Library.  Contact them
directly for a copy at
KATE SHARPLEY LIBRARY, BM Hurricane, London
WCIN 3XX, ENGLAND.
www.katesharpleylibrary.net

PERSONAL OBSERVATION
Hunched over a blue plastic crate, she fiddled with the bits and pieces of
her life oblivious of everything except the flotsam and jetsam that had been
neatly packed away for her and left by the side of the footpath.  She dug,
twisted, and twirled the objects trying to breathe life into them.  Utter
bewilderment dripped off her hunched shoulders.  She lived nearby, one of
those hostels people are assigned to when there´s nowhere else to live.
She´d been a fixture near the office block for 3, maybe 4 years.
Tap, tap, tap, she hit the top of a bright new shiny tin of coffee she´d
purloined from somewhere.  Hugging the tin, she draped the plastic crate
with her body, holding the coffee tin aloft in both hands, a living
sculpture to a pivotal moment in her short but brutish life.  Across the
footpath nestled near the brick wall, 2 freshly cut stumps, still wet with
their own tear, told her story.  Trying to find a space of her own, where
she could be by herself, she´d created a secret space in the undergrowth.
Her little cave held a tattered pillow, the remnants of a mattress and
private bits and pieces she´d hidden from prying eyes.  A human bower bird
was living in the space, hewed out between a brick wall and 2 thick bushes
in a sea of brick offices.
If you didn´t know, you´d walk past her secret hiding place without being
aware of her presence. She didn´t live there; she lived in a tattered old
hostel closer to the Yarra, but used her carefully crafted cave to curl on
her tattered mattress and dream of another life. Somebody must have
complained; autumn exposed what spring and summer hid.  If you knew what to
look for and where to look, you´d make out the contents of her secret hiding
place.  Somebody told somebody, told somebody and finally someone in
authority acted. No consultation, conversation, conference or
convergence­they just did it.
Two men arrived, picked through the contents of her nest, threw most into
the back of a truck, put what they believed she could use in a blue plastic
crate and made short work of her shelter with a chainsaw.  The first she
knew of it, was when I stumbled across her, vacant eyes, hunched shoulders,
heavy breathing, and mist clouding her uncomprehending pupils fiddling with
what was left.  Why?  Who? What did it achieve?  Just like a bird that has
left its nest to gather some more twigs and returns to find the tree its
nest was in, has disappeared.  She found her secret hiding place violated
and eradicated.  If you didn´t know, you´d think you´d stumbled across an
old tramp going through the garbage, not a woman grieving for a life that
has been snatched away from her to satisfy somebody else´s sense of
perspective and morality.  I was no different, I walked past and didn´t say
anything because I assumed she was inconsolable and needed to privately come
to terms with the ocean of emotions coursing through her body.

STOP PRESS
´KYLIE MANIA´
Disgusting, deplorable, degrading are just a few of the words that can be
used to describe the media´s response to the news that the entertainer Kylie
Minogue has breast cancer.  Not that this behaviour is anything new,
normally the public aren´t aware of what lengths the media will go to set a
´story´.
Over a decade ago when I interviewed the legendary crime reporter Tom Prior
on the Anarchist World This Week because he was on the verge of retiring
after 30 years of reporting for Australia´s largest circulating daily,
Murdoch´s Sun News pictorial.  He volunteered that when he first started
work as a cadet reporter, his job was to steal a photograph of a child or
adult who´d died in violent circumstances.  The senor reporter would engage
the grieving family in a conversation which left him free to steal a
photograph of the deceased if the family refused to ´cough´ one up during
the interview.
This phenomenon is not just restricted to the ´gutter press, it´s also part
and parcel of the workings of the ´thinking´ person´s press.  Anybody who´s
been involved in a demonstration, picket line or any activities that
challenge the status quo realises how little interest the fourth estate has
in telling the truth.  One of the seminal moments in Australian reporting
was the TV reporting that accompanied the relatively peaceful S11
demonstrations in Melbourne in September 2000.  When TV footage was shown of
police attacking demonstrators, the voice over accompanying the film talked
about violent protestors.
When the news of Minogue´s cancer broke, all the major media outlets in
Australia run stories that showed airbrushed pictures of her breasts stuffed
into a dress size that was far too small for her.  Normally this is the type
of picture you´d expect to see when they discuss Minogue´s career, but to
run these pictures to illustrate her battle with breast cancer is an
indication of the mindset of these people.  The capitalist media reduces
everything to a commodity, everything is a story and it degrades human
emotion, pain and suffering, to squeeze out the last dollar from people´s
misfortunes.  Reporters, a legion of subeditors, editors, producers and
owners all feed off this frenzy.  Those people that attempt to behave
ethically in the capitalist media, soon find that, like the soldier who
refuses to kill on command, they have no future if they don´t do what
they´re ordered to do to get and alter the story to reinforce the editorial
prejudices of the news outlet they for.

Joseph TOSCANO / Libertarian Workers
For A Self-Managed Society.



ANARCHIST PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED THIS WEEK
SOLI WORKERS SOLIDARITY June ´05, I.W.W. P.O. Box 145, Moreland 3058 Melb
AUSTRALIA. Tel:0403139818, melb@iww.org.au,  www.iww.org.au
CNT No.312 MAY 05, Organo de la Conf Nac del Trabajo, Pza Tirso de Molina
5-2, 28012 Madrid, SPAIN. Tel:913690838, fax:914200856 www.periodicocnt.org
LE LIBERTAIRE No.256 MAY 05, Revue de Synthese Anarchiste, BP 745, 76060 Le
Havre Cedex, FRANCE.
www.le-libertaire.org Email;libertaire@normandnet.fr
L´HOMME LIBRE No183 April/June 05, Recharche d´une psychologie liberatrice
Boite Postale 205-42005, Saint-Etienne Cedex 1, FRANCE
SICILIA LIBERTARIA No.239 April 05, Via Galileo Galilei, 45-97100 Ragusa,
Sicily, ITALY.  Email:si_lib@hotmail.com
SOLIDARIDAD O BRERA No324 April 05, CNT  C/-Hospital 101, 08001 Barcelona,
SPAIN. Tel/Fax:933188834  cnt@soliobrera.org
UMANITA NOVA Vol.85, No.16 8th May ´05, Settimenale Anarchico,
C/-Federazione Anarchico Torinese, C.50 Palermo 46, Torino, ITALY,
tel/fx:011 857850, Mobile:3386594361, email:fat@increte.it

OTHER ANARCHIST RECEIVED THIS WEEK
DISTURBING THE PEACE- Tales from Aust Rebel History. How tgo make trouble &
influence people Excavation Series PT1, 136page book by Homebrew books
available for $15 can be bought in Melb from Friends of the Earth, Sticky
Zineshop, Ne International Bookshop & Polyester Books, Contact Iain at
questionmarks@yahoo.co.uk
PROGRESS No.1067 May/June 05, The Jrnl of Prosper Aust & Earth Sharing, 1/27
Hardware Lane, Melb 3000, AUSTRALIA. Tel;03 9670 2754 Fax;03 9670 3063,
www.earthware.org.au
www.prosper.org.au
NEIGHBOUHOOD NEWS April 05, Burying a dictator-Joh Bjelkie Peterson, 24
Horan St, West End 4101, Bris, AUST. 07 38465077, zapatasbookshop@yahoo.com
OPERAI CONTRO Vol 24 No115 April 05, Giornale per la Critica, La Lotta, Via
Folck, 44-20099, Seato S. Giovanni (MI), ITALY www.asloperaicontro.org
THE PRISON LINK, 1st Quarter 05, A newsletter for California prisoners,
Benjamin Ramos, Attorney at Law, 7405 Greenbank Lane #287, Citrus Heights CA
95610 US 916 9672927
THE VOLNTARYIST No.125 2nd Quarter 05, P.O. Box 275, Grambling, Sth
Carolina, 29348, US

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Discuss All the News That Fits online - www.apolitical.info/phpBB2
Torture should be legalised & is morally defensible even if it causes the
death of innocent people, acc to an article by 2 Vic academics. In a paper
soon to be published in an US law journal, the head of Deakin Uni's Law
School, Prof Mirko Bagaric, & a fellow Deakin law lecturer, Julie Clarke,
argue that in extreme cases, "all forms of harm" may be inflicted on the
suspect, even if this resulted in "annihilation". Asked if he believed
interrogators should be able to legally torture an innocent person to death
if they´d evidence the person knew about a major public threat, Prof Bagaric
replied: "Yes, you could." Professor Bagaric said 1 of the reasons he & Mrs
Clarke had submitted the paper to a US journal was b/c they were more open
to 'new ideas' on human rights. He criticised the "emotive comments that
I've had here in Aust" from groups such as Amnesty International & the Vic
Foundation for Survivors of Torture. (The Age)
A ex cop was found not guilty of dangerous driving, despite hitting &
killing a cyclist & then failing to stop. Prominent lawyer & ex cop Eugene
McGee was driving a 4-wheel drive vehicle when it was involved in a fatal
collision with father-of-2 Ian Humphrey in the Barossa Valley in Nov 03.
McGee didn´t stop at the scene & was arrested by police some 6-half hrs
after the collision. He was acquitted of dangerous driving but found guilty
of the lesser crime of driving without due care. McGee received a $3100 fine
& lost his license for 12 months. A royal commission will examine several
elements of the case, incl why police didn´t breath-test McGee, who admitted
had been drinking wine at a lunch in the hrs b4 the collision. Bystander
Tony Zisimou alleges crucial info he provided to investigating police about
McGee's driving b4 the accident wasn´t presented in his trial. ABC News
website, Adelaide Advertiser, Sunday Telegraph)
Teachers are so disillusioned they´re telling bright students to avoid a
career in secondary teaching, a govt inquiry has been told. Submissions to
an inquiry into teacher education reveal a litany of problems facing
teachers leaving university, forcing many out of the profession in the 1st
few years. Uni courses are too removed from the reality of the classroom,
leaving graduates ill-prepared when they start teaching, submissions from
teacher & university groups suggest. The Ass of Principals of Catholic
Secondary Schools in Aust says the image of teaching is so poor that it´s
not attracting many 'higher-quality' students. "The experience of principals
suggests that in many instances practising teachers are either averse to
encouraging, or actively discourage, secondary students - particularly
high-achieving students - from entering the profession," its submission
says. Research indicates a quarter to a half of new teachers leave the
profession within 3 to 5 years, many jolted by a lack of classroom
experience. Acc to the Aust Secondary Principals' Ass, research shows a
large proportion of new teachers were teaching at least 1 subject in which
they´d no expertise. (Source: The Age)
QUOTE OF THE MOMENT: "True compassion is more than flinging a coin at a
beggar; it comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs
restructuring." Martin Luther King.
ATNTF weekly anarchist news report www.apolitical.info

ANARCHIST MEDIA INSTITUTE OBSCENITY OF THE WEEK
Awarded to the Australian fourth estate´s disgusting, despicable, deplorable
coverage of the Kylie cancer drama-they´d done more to tarnish what´s left
of their tattered reputation than the anarchist movement could ever hope to
achieve in a million years.

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK
´I want to die obese so the people carrying my coffin to the hearse, know
they´re dealing with a man of substance´

STAMP APPEAL  - We spend over $500.00 on postage stamps per month.  If
you´re writing to us or have any spare stamps floating about stuff them into
the envelope & send them to us.  JOIN our $5.00 a month group & send us a
book of 10 50 cent stamps every month.

DOWNLOAD THE WEEKLY!!
Interested in the Anarchist Age Weekly Review?  Want to get hold of your own
copy, then download it from http://anarchistmedia.org/weekly.html. Email it
your friends, it´s the cheapest and best birthday present you´ll ever buy
them.  Go on, be a devil, spoil the day of all those people you know who
wield power in society and email them the Anarchist Age Weekly Review.

DIRECT DEMOCRACY NOT PARLIAMENTARY RULE
Week TWENTY TWO-74 members
476 TO GO!!
(The trickle of applications has started to flow again-turn that trickle
into a flood.  Send your completed application form in today) Fill in that
Application Form we recently sent to you and send it ASAP to
P.O. BOX 5035, ALPHINGTON 3078   If you haven´t an Application Form,
download it from Web:
www.rulebythepeople.org  or write to us at P.O. BOX
5035, ALPHINGTON 3078 for a Application Form
ALREADY JOINED
Photocopy the spare copy you´ve received with your membership card and
distribute to your friends, workmates or set up a stall in the places you
live and work in.  Whether Direct Democracy Not Parliamentary Rule becomes a
reality ultimately rests in your hands.  Web: www.rulebythepeople.orgEmail:

supporters@rulebythepeople.org    Tel: 0439 395 489 BUILD an alternative to
the fossilised parliamentary system.  Stop giving a signed blank cheque to
politicians to make decisions on you behalf.
JOIN: DIRECT DEMOCRACY NOT PARLIAMENTARY RULE
Written & Authorised by Dr. Joseph TOSCANO Suite 4 / 2187 Princess Highway,
Clayton 3168, Victoria, AUSTRALIA
MEMBERS WILL RECEIVE THE GROUP´S 2nd NEWSLETTER IN EARLY JUNE
** Go to rulebythepeople.org and sign up to our low traffic official group
news broadcast email list. **

****    EUREKA BANNERS / FLAGS APPEAL    ****
($1,500 NEEDED)
Graeme Dunstan, the lantern maker for the Eureka Dawn Walk, has designed a
number of Eureka flags and banners we can use to celebrate forthcoming
anniversaries of the Eureka rebellion at Ballarat on 3rd December.
The designs can be accessed from our website <<anarchistmedia.org>>
These flags and banners will form an important part of the march from the
Eureka stockade site to Bakery Hill to the cemetery and back to the Eureka
stockade site. We have launched an appeal to raise the $1500 needed to make
these flags and banners.  Send cheques and money orders made out to:
LIBERTARIAN WORKERS, P.O. BOX 20 PARKVILLE 3052, VIC, AUSTRALIA with a note
saying you want the money to go towards the Eureka flags and banners
The flags & banners will give the ´long march´ the visual component it
currently lacks. Want to have a look at what you´re sending in your money to
make to be used at the 151st anniversary of the Eureka rebellion then log
onto
http://www.peacebus.com/flagdesigns/
RECEIVED SO FAR $350.00    -     $1150.00 TO GO

 ´NO WAR$ / NO Forbes / NO CEO´s´
Forbes Conference CEO´s  assemble at Sydney´s Opera House on the evening of
29th August 2005.
The Forbes CEO Conference will have high profile neo-con war profiteers and
their political courtiers attending the conference in Sydney on 30th August
2005.  Log in to find out what on the day  www.30A.org

ANARCHIST WORLD THIS WEEK-3CR RADIOTHON
Wednesday 15th June 10am-11am
Dig deep and keep the Anarchist World This Week broadcasting across
Australia for another 26 years. For every $2 you donate, receive a
complimentary copy of the Anarchist Age Weekly Review ($100-one years fee
subscription) Receive a legal legitimate tax deduction for donating to the
3CR Radiothon Send cheques of money orders to
3CR Attention: Joseph Toscano PO Box 5035 Alphington 3078 Vic Australia.

PEACE CONVERGENCE
CIARON O´REILLY- Brisbane born anti-war activist is facing trial in Dublin
on the 24th October 2005 on charges of causing $2.5m damage to a US Navy war
plane on route to the war in Iraq through Shannon airport.  Ciaron has come
back to Australia for June´s Operation Talisman Sabre (magic sword).  Ciaron
plans to bring a ´magic hammer´ from Ireland.  Talisman Sabre is the largest
military exercise in Australian history, 10,000 US troops & 20,000
Australian & other troops are involved in the exercise. (More background

www.geocities.com/peaceconvergence) Ciaron O´Reilly will be in Melbourne
from the 26th to 30th of May.  If you´re able to arrange a special
engagement for Ciaron or if you want info about events that have already
been booked email pwdyson@yahoo.com or ring Paul Dyson on 0432 915 153

MEDIA CONFERENCE
´TERRIBLE THINGS HAPPEN WHEN GOOD PEOPLE DO NOTHING´
Launch of campaign to encourage tourists to stop visiting Australia, trading
partners to stop buying Australian goods and international students to study
elsewhere until asylum seekers and refugees are treated in a manner that
reconises that they as citizens of this planet enjoy inalienable human
rights.
TIME: - MIDDAY
DATE: - OUTSIDE THE COMMONWEALTH OFFICES
AT 4 TREASURY PLACE EAST MELBOURE
ALL WELCOME!!

EUREKA 151ST ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATIONS
Join us  4am Saturday 3rd December 2005 at
The site the battle took place Eureka park (Stawell and Eureka Street
Ballarat)
4am Dawn ceremony
7-10am Communal breakfast (bring your own food and drinks)
10am March to Bakery Hill to retake the Eureka oath.
10.30am Presentation of Eureka Australia Day Medal at Bakery Hill
11.30am March to Ballarat cemetery to pay our respects to the workers at
either end of a bayonet who died during the eureka rebellion
12.30pm March back to Eureka Park through the centre of Ballarat. Late lunch
& conversational for those participating who are still able to stand up (BYO
food & drinks).

FOOD NOT SCABS
A proposal for Practical Solidarity with the Trade Union movement
and other social justice movements.
Join the ´FOOD NOT SCABS´ Collective
Lunch time meeting (1-3pm)
Thursday 2nd June 2005,
Grasslands Organic Grocery & Catering
211 Nicholson St, FOOTSCRAY 3012, MELBOURNE
email:grasslandsorganic.com
mob: 0407 864 036     Tel: 03 9362 0830      Fax: 03 9362 0810

If You Like What You Have Read, Photocopy This Publication and Leave It In
Doctors, Dentists,
Vets Waiting Rooms and In Railway Stations, Bus Stops, Libraries and
Restaurants Etc.
The articles in the Anarchist Age Weekly Review reflect the personal
opinions of the authors, they do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the
publishers, the Libertarian Workers for a Self-Managed Society/Anarchist
Media Institute.
All material in the Anarchist Age Weekly Review can be used by anarchists,
anarchist collectives and non-profit organisations as long as the source of
the material is mentioned in the article.  The Anarchist Age Weekly Review
reserves all rights as far as commercial publications are concerned.

ANARCHISM-ADVANCING IN DIVERSITY STRIKING IN UNISON-YAMAGUCHI KENJI
WELCOME TO THE 21ST CENTURY-THE ANARCHIST CENTURY

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