PO Box 20
PARKVILLE 3052
Melbourne

Or email your order to anarchistage@yahoo.com

(We will manufacture the T-shirts when we have 100 orders. Currently - 31/03/10 - we have 56 orders)

One of the primary reasons that was used to privatise public assets in Australia was they were non profitable, the service provided was abysmal and the workers were not accountable for their actions because they were protected by a heavy union presence. We were told that privatised services would be cheaper, more efficient and staff would be accountable. What was presented as fact has turned out to be fiction. Not that we would have expected any other outcome. People seem to have forgotten that public enterprises were initially set up to cover the gaps the private sector were unwilling or unable to cover because they were not profitable.

Nothing highlights the fallacy private enterprise does it cheaper and more efficiently than public enterprise than the financial rorting accompanying the current home insulation and school hall building schemes. It’s become very fashionable for the Opposition Leader and the media to blame the Rudd Labor government for the rorting accompanying these schemes. Considering that lives have been lost, the safety of Australian families has been compromised and the wholesale ripping off of billions of dollars of taxpayers’ money have occurred, you’d think a little bit of media attention would be focused on the failures of private enterprise, capitalism and the pitfalls of subcontracting state responsibilities to the private sector.

As expected, not one word has been raised about the failures of a system based on the creation of ever increasing profits irrespective of the human, social and environmental costs. Nothing highlights the moral and ethical bankruptcy of 21st century capitalist society more than its unwillingness and inability to allow other voices to be heard in an era when it’s becoming increasingly obvious economic and institutional frameworks that may have been appropriate in an era of plenty are downright dangerous as we move into an era of scarcity brought about by increasing population growth, finite resources, increasing greenhouse emissions and the domination of the world economy by corporate capitalism

The Labor and Liberal Party shadow dancing in Tasmania reminds me of two coy lovers who don't know how to go about consummating their relationship. Deep in their hearts they know they’re made for each other – they both have the same environmental, health, economic and education policies but they’re concerned about what their supporters would think if they threw caution to the wind and got on with it.

Everybody in Tasmania and Australia knows Liberal/Labor policies are only different in the way they are implemented. Politics have never been the same since the dismissal of the Whitlam government in 1975. The Hawke/Keating transformation of the Labor Party saw the Party turned into a Liberal Party clone. Policy differences are at best superficial, that’s why the Federal Opposition Leader, Taliban Tony Abbott, has to resort to hyperbole and budgie smugglers to differentiate his Party’s policies from the Labor Party.

The Liberal Party and the Alternative Liberal Party (ALP) in Tasmania could do the country a favour and consummate their relationship. Their marriage is a marriage made in heaven. They could sideline those pesky Greens, get rid of all those old growth forests in Tasmania and help Gunns build that pulp mill they’re having so much trouble raising finance for. People forget that during World War One the Labor Prime Minister, Billy Hughes, forged a coalition between those Labor members who supported conscription and his conservative opponents when he couldn’t get his way in Cabinet.

It’s time the Liberal/Labor Party threw caution to the wind, consummated their relationship and incorporated all the country’s conservatives in one grand coalition

This week’s immigration, last week health, next week defence. An issue a week keeps the 24/7 news cycle ticking over and the politicians in the public eye. Unfortunately, as you and I know, keeping political leaders in the public eye doesn’t lead to co-operative discussion or for that matter, any discussion. The scene goes something like this. The Prime Minister and his Ministers float an idea courtesy of the 24/7 news cycle. The Opposition Leader pops up and says it’s all wrong. We have a “debate” that is conducted in the virtual world by half a dozen talking heads and hey presto, the issue has been dealt with.

Pardon my cynicism, but did you notice anything missing from this little scenario that is repeated day after day after day. How perceptive of you, nobody included you in that debate, nobody asked you what you think. Well I'm afraid in this little scenario youll have your chance to express your opinion at the next election. Yep, you will be able to give a signed blank cheque to a political representative to make decisions for you for the next three years. If you’re not happy with the “power” you were able to exercise you can go through the same charade in three years time – lucky you.

Wouldn’t it make a great deal more sense if we were all involved in that discussion and debated the pros and cons of making that decision and then appointed or elected delegates to carry out those decisions at a local, regional and national level? This type of scenario makes a great deal more sense to you and me than the artificial scripted debates we have today that inevitably lead to a two political leaders squabbling about issues that are never resolved because the 24/7 news cycle demands another issue to satisfy its advertiser’s demands.

Surprise!! Surprise!! “Workers ensnared in web of net”, Sunday Age (4/4). It’s no surprise to anyone who has had anything to do with technology that the net has added another chain to worker’s ankles. Over the past few decades Australians have become enmeshed in a technological revolution that has made a mockery of the concept of the eight hour day.

It is ironical in the early 21st century we are involved in the same struggle to achieve a work/life choice balance that our great grandparents and grandparents were involved in, in the early 20th century. The struggle for the eight hour working day and five day working week played a pivotal role in the growth of a trade union movement that believed technological innovations would deliver workers from the drudgery of everyday work.

Unfortunately, those involved in that struggle did not factor corporate greed into that equation. The domination of the world economy by capitalism, an economic system based on the creation of ever increasing profits irrespective of the human, social and environmental costs, has led to the use of technological innovations that were meant to liberate us from the drudgery of work sucking us into a twenty four hour, seven days a week work centred vortex. This technological “revolution” has made us slaves to employers who expect and demand our minds, bodies and souls be on standby to do their bidding 24/7

Denying Palestinians the right of return to the lands that were over run in 1949 and 1967, denying them compensation for the loss of their lands, herding them into the biggest concentration in the world, the Gaza Strip, bombing them into submission and refusing to consider the establishment of a Palestinian state are not the type of policies that will win hearts and minds in the Middle East.

The rise and rise of the Islamists in the Middle East is directly related to the West’s direct support for some of the most authoritarian governments in the world. The United States’ support for the feudal monarchy in Saudi Arabia, its support for the autocratic rulers of Egypt and its support for autocratic regimes throughout the Middle East has driven more and more people into the arms of the Islamists. Faced with a rapidly growing gap between the rich and poor, autocratic governments directly supported by democracies in the West, the never-ending conflict between Israel and Palestine and the inability of Libertarian forces within the Middle East to gain traction because of the strength of authoritarian governments security apparatus more and more people living in the Middle East are being drawn into the arms of religious fundamentalists who use religion to pursue their own authoritarian agenda

The overriding consideration in the distribution of resources in an anarchist society is human need. The exchange networks that are set up make decisions on how resources are allocated on human needs predetermined by the community and workplace councils. Faced with the dilemma of people wanting services making outrageous demands for resources and those allocating those services allocating them on criteria other than need, an anarchist society has to ensure the process is transparent and those people who work in the exchange networks are accountable. Staff rotation, publicly transparent decision making processes and supervision of the process by recallable delegates appointed by community and work place councils are some of the mechanisms that could be used to ensure the exchange networks that are set up to distribute goods, services, homes and land do so on the basis of human need.

The success or failure of an anarchist society is dependent on its ability to distribute commonly held resources in a fair and efficient manner. Those that fail to do so sow the seeds of their own destruction.

The struggle to open up a people’s bank is not a new one. Australians over a century ago faced with the same financial issues we face today created the momentum that forced an earlier Labor government to establish a new people’s bank – the Commonwealth National Bank. The establishment of a people’s bank whose primary responsibility was to the Australian people, not the major shareholders of the privately owned bank, changed banking forever.

This time we won't be making the same mistake that was made a century ago. This time we are campaigning for the ownership of the New People’s Bank to be incorporated into the Australian constitution so only the people, not the government of the day, have the power to sell the people’s bank in a referendum. So what’s all this got to do with you? Currently the Wednesday Action Group is holding vigils outside Melbourne’s major banks every Wednesday. We are collecting signatures for a House of Representatives and Senate petition from people who support the establishment of a new people’s bank. From the 12th May we will be holding monthly public rallies outside the State Library in Melbourne until the next Federal election to bring the issue to the fore during an election year.

We encourage you to join the Wednesday Action Group Wednesday vigils and rallies. More importantly, we encourage you to set up your own “It’s Time for a New People’s Bank group were you live or work and take action to bring this issue to the public’s attention. If you’re concerned about how the monopoly exercised by the private banks affects you, your family, your friends and the community, this is the perfect opportunity for you to become involved with like minded people in a campaign to establish a New People’s Bank. ALL ABOARD!!

MONEY
“A study of the currency question, especially in its Relations to the principles of Equity, Utility and Liberty” – David A. Andrade.
This pamphlet was written by the secretary of the Melbourne Anarchist Club and printed by their own printing press – the Co-operative Publishing Co.

The Melbourne Anarchist Club was in close contact with Anarchists in Europe and North America and imported Anarchist literature into Australia. Some of the books imported included:
What’s to be Done – A Nihilistic Romance by N.G. Tchernychewsky (translated into English). The Russian edition of this work is now said to be worth one hundred and twenty pounds a copy (in 1887) the first American edition was sold off in five days. Available from the Melbourne Anarchist Club for five shillings.

The works of Charles T. Fowler, Emmerson’s Essays, Evolution and Revolution by Elisee Reclus and Liberty a fortnightly organ of Anarchism by Benjamin R. Tucker were also available from the club.

The Club published in 1887, Free-love: Explained and Defended – a four page leaflet for propagandist purposes – sixpence for a packet of twenty five available from the Melbourne Anarchist Club.
What is Property? By P.J. Proudhon was available from the Melbourne Anarchist Club located at 9 Alexandra Theatre, Exhibition St. Melbourne for sixteen shillings and sixpence.
Just in case you wanted to purchase the entire works of P.J Proudhom, you could write to Benj R. Tucker, Box 3366 Boston Mass. USA and for just three dollars a year you would receive over the next fifty months the entire output of the Great Anarchist P.J. Proudhon.

If you couldn’t afford what was advertised you could write to the Melbourne Anarchist Club Secretary at 9 Alexandra Theatre, Melbourne and for a penny to cover postage costs you would receive for “Prospectus Gratis” the Club’s prospectus for free. “In addition to enumerating the objects and principles of the Club, “the Prospectus” contains a number of ‘Anarchist Gems for Thoughtful People’ which will repay perusal”.

Looks like some things never change. If you’re on the world wide web you can receive The Anarchist Age Weekly Review “Gratis” every week by sending your email address to anarchistage@yahoo.com . Unfortunately postage and printing costs have risen since 1887 and you’ll need to send a dollar a week to receive a hard copy of the Anarchist Age Weekly Review in 2010. Such is life (apologies to Ned Kelly and Ben Cousins).

For far too long Australians have felt safe in the knowledge that what happened in the past is none of their business and people today cannot judge behaviour that was universally tolerated in the past. Using this analogy is a little bit like saying we can't judge the Nazis for the Holocaust because attitudes were different in the 1930’s. Many people opposed the Nazis in the 1930’s and many Australians during this country’s history have opposed the disgraceful treatment meted out to indigenous Australians during the past 228 years.

Donald Stuart’s book published in 1959 documents the walkout from the cattle stations in the Kimberley’s by aboriginal stockmen and their families who lived in the most deplorable conditions, who were paid with tea and flour from an aboriginal perspective. It looks at the clash of cultures, the pivotal role the police played in providing slave labour for the squatters who grew rich on the land they had stolen and the labour of the people they had stolen it from. It highlights how one whiteman, Don McLeod, initiated a struggle eagerly taken up by many Aborigines in the Kimberley (who for their troubles were arrested, jailed and killed) to once and for all escape the bondage they and their children were subjected to.

The book is easy reading. The author has used his knowledge of that struggle to write a documentary novel that brought indigenous Australian’s miserable plight on the cattle stations to the attention of the rest of the country. It predates the many struggles that have come and gone and continue to occur to ensure what happened never happens again. Yandy highlights we can judge the past by the moral and ethical standards of the present because it shows not everybody in the past accepted only those with white skins had rights.

Yandy is a book that every Australian should read because it documents in a narrative from a story that is as important to the development of the Australian character as Eureka and the Ned Kelly saga is. Try your local library or a second hand bookshop for a copy of this excellent book written in 1959. Thanks once again to that well read Melbourne anarchist, Peter, for lending me his copy of Yandy which he picked up from one of those public library sales when the old books are replaced by brand new books that aren’t half as good as those turfed out were.

Back to the Roy Orbison look-a-like, not that I’ve got anything against Roy Orbison look-a-likes, his seeing eye dog was leading him into the liquor shop. Just as he was about to enter the shop, a slim middle aged blonde woman blurted out in that robotic voice people talk in when they have had their vocal cords removed “Roy, is that your new dog?” He spun around to face the monotonal request, “Yes Kath” he answered.

Over the next few minutes they conducted the type of conversation acquaintances do when they meet. The old man with his seeing eye dog and his Roy Orbison glasses and the middle aged woman who had beaten cancer but had lost her vocal cords in that unequal struggle passed the time of day blocking the entrance to the liquor store. People waited quietly in the soft artificial light while this unlikely pair conducted their conversation. The conversation ended as abruptly as it began, he followed his dog into the liquor shop, she walked down to her car in the disabled parking spot, got in and drove off.

I, mesmerised by the chance encounter, stopped fiddling with a battery that was way too large for the job it was meant to do, while I thought about the odds of this happening again. My question was answered the next day when I bumped into a woman who co-hosts the radio program after the Anarchist World This Week on 3CR, outside Walkerville near Wilsons Promontory – chance encounters occur in all our lives more frequently than we realise.

Unfortunately it gets better, “free traders” are also interested in increasing the number of immigrants, especially skilled immigrants because they don't have to waste money training new local workers. They also love new migrants because they are more likely to work harder to keep their jobs and unlikely to become involved with those pesky unionists. It gets even better, if you’ve got this never ending supply of labour it is highly unlikely local workers will be able to bargain for a bigger share of the cake because labour shortages will never be an issue.

Immigration in Australia has always revolved around increasing skilled workers in this country. Although over 180,000 migrants came to Australia last year and many more arrived on three year working visas, the number of places allocated to refugees still languishes at 13,000 (approximately 7% of intake). This number is decreased by the number of asylum seekers who make their own way to Australia.

I have always been of the opinion that immigration should focus on refugees and family reunions, not skilled migration. It is time we had “the debate we had to have” on immigration that looks at the country’s capacity, the needs of refugees and focuses on an immigration policy that satisfies real human needs not the artificial demands made for labour by “free traders” who for far too long have used parliament to promote their interests before the interests of the people of Australia.

Like a brass door stop
She stares
triangle ears twitch turn
like pixies
Suddenly she jack knifes
and washes her arse
stiffens back to her silhouette
tail trailing behind a quiver
soon she squats down
stimuli a horse fly on a bottle top
milk swimming in the brain
her tongue swinging
eyes rolling

1. If you receive the Anarchist Age Weekly Review by post and have access to the internet, you can receive it by email instead of post.
   Saving us postage and printing costs. Just send your details to anarchistage@yahoo.com and we will put you on the email list..

2. Whenever you get a chance send us 55cent Australian postage stamps.
   Even if you send us a book of ten every two months this will go a long way to eating into our postage costs. Send them to P.O. BOX 20 PARKVILLE 3052 AUSTRALIA..

3. If you are using cheques or money orders to send us funds, make out cheques and money orders directly to 3CR. Broadcasting The Anarchist World This Week is responsible for over 40% of our costs. Send cheques and money orders to P.O. BOX 20 PARKVILLE 3052, Melbourne AUSTRALIA.

4. Take out a subscription to the Anarchist Age Weekly Review for yourself, your friends, your enemies, your local library – 50 dollars for 50 issues. Make cheques or money orders out to LIBERTARIAN WORKERS and send to P.O. BOX 20, PARKVILLE 3052 AUSTRALIA.

Stamps make up a significant part of our costs because we continue to send out the Anarchist Age Weekly Review by snail mail to people who can’t or don’t want to download it from the internet. 

Send us a book of ten or twenty 55 cent stamps every month.  It will go a long way to helping us meet our postage costs.

Thrill your friends, confound your enemies – put your name down for a new T-shirt.

PO Box 20
PARKVILLE 3052
Melbourne

Or email your order to anarchistage@yahoo.com

(We will manufacture the T-shirts when we have 100 orders. Currently - 27/03/10 - we have 56 orders)

IT'S TIME FOR A NEW PEOPLE'S BANK

People for a Royal Commission into Corruption in Victoria

JOIN THEM Wednesday 14th April 11:30am-12:30pm

outside head offices of the ANZ Bank
(309-325 Bourke St, Melbourne)

Know someone who has devoted their life to the principles outlined in the Eureka Oath? “We swear by the Southern Cross to stand truly by each other and fight to defend our rights and liberties”.

Know someone whose contribution to life in this country has been ignored? This year, as in the past four years, The Anarchist Media Institute will be awarding six Reclaim the Radical Spirit of the Eureka Rebellion Australia Day Medals at Bakery Hill in Ballarat on the 3rd December to Australian social, community and political activists.

Send in your contribution with the person’s name, a paragraph about why you think they deserve the Eureka Medal and their contact details to

anarchistage@yahoo.com or send them to
PO Box 20 Parkville 3052 Aust.

Nominations close 31st October

4am - 4pm FRIDAY 3rd DECEMBER 2010
156th ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATIONS AT EUREKA STOCKADE SITE
(Corner Stawell & Eureka Streets, Ballarat, VICTORIA)

Celebrate the important elements of the Eureka Rebellion
Direct Democracy - Direct Action
Solidarity - Internationalism

4:00am Dawn Ceremony, Eureka Park at the Eureka Memorial
6:00am Breakfast Eureka Park (bring your own food & drinks)
9:00am March from Eureka Park to Bakery Hill to re-affirm the Eureka Oath
9:30am Presentation Eureka Australia Day Medals at Bakery Hill
11:00am Eureka Flag Raising Ceremony outside Ballarat Town Hall
11:30am Walk to Old Ballarat Cemetery to pay our respects (please bring flowers)
12:30pm From Old Ballarat Cemetery to Ballarat Art Gallery to view Eureka Flag
1:00pm View Eureka Flag at the Ballarat Art Gallery
1:30pm Walk from Art Gallery to Eureka Park for late lunch (bring own food)

Then send your details to anarchistage@yahoo.com

TIERRA Y LIBERTAD No.260 March 2010, Periodico Anarquista, Apartado 7.056 de Madrid, 28080 SPAIN, Web: www.nodo50.org/tierraylibertad

OPERAI CONTRO Vol 29 No.131 March 2010, Giornale per la Critica La Lotta, L’organizzazione degli operai contro Lo struttamento, Via Falck 44-20099, Sesto S. Giovanni (MI), ITALY

THE POWER OF RECALL – Electors having the constitutional right to recall parliamentary representatives in between elections

CITIZENS INITIATED REFERENDUMS – The people having the power to initiate constitutional change through referendums

DIRECT DEMOCRACY – Electing delegates with limited mandates, to co-ordinate decisions that have been made by the people, not electing representatives to make decisions for us.

(We Currently Have 123 Paid Up Members)

DIRECT DEMOCRACY NOT PARLIAMENTARY RULE - www.rulebythepeople.org

An anarchist analysis of local, national & international events. Tune into your local community radio station to listen to the Anarchist World This Week. If they don’t broadcast it, ask them why not! If they’re one of the 150 community radio stations around Australia that are affiliated to the National Community Radio Satellite, they are able to broadcast the Anarchist World This Week.

Has been won by the government gelded ABC and the corporate owned media for never using the C word – CAPITALISM – in their one way conversation with themselves.

Evil – a human construct to justify the unjustifiable.

A court has ordered two young girls to spend weekends with their sex-offender father, despite stating that they need protection from him.

Judge Robert Benjamin said that the father must put a lock on the girls’ bedroom, since they “need some protection from [their father], particularly at night.”

However, he said, the risk of sexual abuse was “diminished when they are awake and alert.”

The father, who was convicted of three child pornography offences, including filming images of child pornography on his computer, must have an “adult friend” stay with him when the girls stay overnight.

A Family Court counsellor said that the girls, aged 8 and 10, “are at an age and maturity when awake, dressed and together it would be unlikely the father would act inappropriately toward them.”

The older girl has told counsellors she was afraid to stay overnight with her father.

(Source: MX)

An organisation founded by prominent Liberal senator Cory Bernardi promoted an anti-environmental event, which implied that those who turned their lights off for Earth Hour are allied with communists.

The Conservative Leadership Foundation, founded and chaired by Senator Cory Bernardi, promoted ‘Human Achievement Hour’, encouraging people to leave their lights on during Earth Hour. Earth Hour urges people to turn their lights off to promote efforts to mitigate global warming.

Material on the group’s website states that ”freedom hating communists in North Korea don’t have lights” and urges the reader “don’t be stuck in the dark with the communists. Turn your lights on!”

(Source: The Age)

An online betting agency is targeting gamblers low on funds by offering them instant credit to induce them to spend more.

Sportsbet tracks a gambler’s average bet and, when the funds in their account fall below the value of their usual bet, offers them three options including $200 in credit.

If they have not recovered the $200 within a week, users are expected to pay back the balance.

(Source: The Age)

Quote of the Moment:

“It’s not pedophilia. Most of the victims are post- pubescent.”

Bill Donohue of the New York-based Catholic League, on the abuse of children by Catholic priests. An ad placed by the group also described the group Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests as “professional victims.”