He is an avid writer and his ideas are easily accessibly on the internet. Alan Parker had the foresight and vision to be raising serious concerns about the profit for profit’s sake mentality that was destroying the environment in the 1960’s and 70’s. He was putting forward solutions in the public arena to the current environmental crises long before most people and governments ever knew, let alone acknowledged a crisis existed. Thirty five years later, the ideas that Alan raised to try to address the current environmental crisis, are only now being taken seriously by the community, business and government. Without men and women of the calibre of Alan Parker, the planet would be in a much sorrier state than it’s currently in.

I am confused why so many conservatives and reactionaries are unhappy that the Australian Labor Party is in office in every Australian State and Territory and also Federally. These parties have more than the same conservative economic outlook in common. They also have the same cultural, social and environmental agenda. What at first may seem to be different policies is an illusion - An apology to indigenous Australians without compensation, signing the Greenhouse agreement without tackling the elephant in the living room capitalism, withdrawing ‘combat’ troops in Iraq but continuing to support intervention in Iraq and increasing military intervention in other parts of the world and removing WorkChoices legislation while retaining the same economic system that exploits workers.

Over the past few decades, we have witnessed a convergence of political ideology that goes far beyond the economic. The concentration of power and wealth in fewer and fewer hands and the resultant domination of the political, social, cultural and environmental landscape by a powerful minority has greatly reduced the power of Parliament. Parliament has become a hostage to that section of the community that controls the purse strings. In such an economic and cultural climate, extra parliamentary political activity becomes far more important than parliamentary action.

If we want radical egalitarian change, we can’t expect that change will come by working up the right channels and limiting our political activities to casting a ballot every 3 to 4 years. The sooner we realise the difference between the major political parties is cosmetic, the sooner we will be able to develop a political and social movement that challenges dominant political and social ideology.

Australians don’t have a right to vote, they have a duty to vote. The difference between a duty and a right is choice. Compulsory registration and compulsory voting - forces people to cast a ballot. They may vote informal or not mark their ballot paper or even have their name crossed off the electoral roll and not vote at all, but they are still forced to participate in the electoral process.

A right implies we have a choice about whether we exercise that right. A duty implies we have no choice. I’m 56, Australian born and am not on the electoral roll. I have never voted at a local, State or Federal election, although I have stood as a Senate candidate at the last 8 Federal elections – (Under the Australian Constitution, I am entitled to stand if I’m entitled to be on the electoral roll). I don’t vote because I’m against voting or am disinterested in the political process. I don’t vote because I’m not willing to give a parliamentary representative a signed blank cheque to make decisions on my behalf for the next 3 years. I believe in the electorate making decisions (direct democracy) and electing or appointing delegates to carry out decisions made by the electorate.

When the Rudd government revokes Howard’s unfair electoral laws, Mr. Danby could make amends for his apparent ignorance of the Commonwealth Electoral Act and ask his parliamentary colleagues in the Australian Labor Party to revoke Australia’s compulsory voting laws, so Australian electors can once again exercise their right to vote.

While the Commonwealth Bank remained in public hands, private banks had to think twice about introducing new fees because customers had a real choice. They could bank with a government owned bank which was established by Australia’s early Labor governments to guarantee customers deposits and provide financial services to customers at a reasonable price or they could bank with the private sector.

The problems associated with the sale of public assets are not just limited to the banking sector. While the State plays a role in particular industries by providing consumers with State owned goods and services, its presence prevents the private sector from price gouging. Once public assets are sold - the only brake that exists in a market place dominated by monopolies has been removed – the sale of public assets allows monopolies to set their own prices.

If the Rudd government was serious about curbing banking fees and providing banking services to Australians at a reasonable price, they would introduce legislation to establish a new Commonwealth Bank, not tinker at the edges with legislation they know will have little effect on a banking sector dominated by some of the most powerful monopolies in the world.

The Australian government’s authority comes directly from the people through the electoral process. Every 3 years, those Australians who cast a ballot, give their elected representatives a signed blank cheque to make decisions on their behalf for the next 3 years.

The indignities and injustices the stolen generations suffered when State and Federal government legislation was used to remove children from their Aboriginal parents to ‘breed’ out the blackness of mixed race children, was carried out with the support of Australians who voted for governments who pursued these policies. Parliament is not an entity unto itself. Parliamentarians are directly responsible to the people who elected them, as well as the country as a whole.

It’s important the apology to the stolen generations is an apology by Parliament on behalf of the Australian people, not just an apology on behalf of Parliament. For the apology to be limited just to the Federal parliamentarians, calls into question the nature of the apology When governments pass legislation, they do so, on behalf of the Australian people; when governments go to war, they do so, on behalf of the Australian people. When governments issue an apology, that apology should be issued on behalf of the Australian people, not Parliament.

An apology to the stolen generations on behalf of Parliament is not good enough. Ultimate political authority in Australia today rests in the hands of the people through Parliament. Whether every Australian agrees with the apology is irrelevant; governments act and legislate for the people as a whole. For the Rudd government to squib on this much needed and important apology is a breach of trust to the stolen generations, indigenous Australians and the Australian community as a whole.

Peter had always been interested in healthcare and had been trying to form a radical healthcare group in Sydney.

Peter James McGregor was 60 when he died. His father left home when he was young, leaving Peter’s mother Alice McGregor to raise Peter, his brother Ken and his sister Mary alone. Peter, a bright and sensitive child, was dux of Roseville Primary School, went to North Sydney Boys High School and graduated from Sydney University. While teaching maths at Manly High in the mid to late 60’s, he and his mother Alice became increasingly involved in the anti-apartheid movement.

Peter left teaching when he came into conflict with the school for attending protest meetings. He, Meredith Burgmann (the co-convenors of the Anti-Apartheid Movement) and Denis Freney, are credited by Don Bradman’s son John, with convincing the Don to cancel the South African cricket tour of Australia in 1971.

He became an anarchist in 1973, despite difficulties he had with some people in the anarchist movement, anarchist ideas continued to play a prominent role for most of his life.

Recently despairing about the possibility that anarchists would ever be able to achieve radical egalitarian change, he joined the Socialist Alliance. Peter worked tirelessly to bring to people’s attention injustices in the world. He campaigned against the Vietnam War and campaigned to free Tim Anderson, Paul Alister and Ross Dunn over Sydney’s Hilton bombing charges. He was involved in political campaigns, supporting East Timor, opposing Aboriginal deaths in custody and last year was arrested for trying to arrest Philip Ruddock – the Federal Attorney General for crimes committed during the invasion of Iraq by the ‘Coalition of the Willing’.

Peter was an academic as well as an activist; his book on the Vietnam War – ‘Cultural Battles: The Meaning of the Vietnam – USA War’ published in 1998, gives the reader an idea about the breadth of Peter’s thinking. He taught Media Studies at Macquarie University and the University of Western Sydney from 1987 to 2004.

He and his partner Johanna Trainor initially bought a house in Leichhardt in Sydney, but later moved to Newcastle. Peter had increasing trouble with his health during the last few years of his life. Those of us who attended this year’s ‘Reclaim the Radical Spirit of the Eureka Rebellion’ celebrations were pleased to see Jo and Peter at Ballarat on the 3rd of December 2007 to claim his ‘Eureka Australia Day Medal’. His acceptance speech was full of life and vigour and a highlight of the Bakery Hill gathering.

It is difficult to believe that I have known Peter for over 35 years. I still find it difficult to believe that I won’t receive another email, telephone call or letter from Peter. He was one of those human beings who I can genuinely say was a pleasure to know. Like the rest of us, Peter had his good days and bad days. With the life long support of his partner, Johanna Trainor, he made a significant contribution towards creating that new world in our hearts.

Goodbye Peter, we miss you already.

Murder, rape, looting, bloodshed and mayhem are always pointed to as the consequences of revolution. Revolution, like any other human activity can quickly degenerate into violence. Whether the overthrow of established authority results in chaos is dependent on a number of factors. Revolution conducted by a vanguard always results in indiscriminate violence. To try to change a society that holds a monopoly on the use of force with violence, plays into the hands of those who exercise authority. Any revolutionary who thinks all they have to do is blow up a few buildings to bring the system down, forgets that you cannot blow up a social relationship. Even if they succeed in disrupting society, indiscriminate violence, not a new social or political order is the end product of a vanguard led struggle.

Anarchists have always understood that radical societal change requires mass action. Mass action does not occur without mass understanding and organisation. Whether the overthrow of authority is followed by indiscriminate violence, is to a large degree determined by whether a dual power situation has evolved during the struggle for radical egalitarian change.

If organisations exist in society that are based on anarchist principles, irrespective of whether they call themselves anarchist or not, they can act as a nucleus for the new society that is being created. The greater the level of organisation, the greater the number of affinity geographical, interest and workplace groups, the greater the tendency for indiscriminate violence to be minimised during the overthrow of an established political system. By creating the new society within the shell of the old, we decrease the amount of indiscriminate violence that occurs during a revolution.

Reducing the amount of indiscriminate violence that occurs during the transfer of power is the best way to build the popular movement that’s required to resist a violent counter revolution by those forces in society who are willing to use violence to regain the power they’ve lost.

Issues are the symptoms of the disease; that disease is the domination of all aspects of our lives by an economic, social, political and cultural system that must create ever increasing profits, irrespective of the human, social and environmental costs. Ultimate political authority does not lie in the hands of the people; it lies in the hands of that small minority that owns the means of production, distribution and exchange – who dominate political, social, economic and political activity. We either accept this state of affairs or we become involved in activity that challenges their right to exercise power.

To move from issue to issue without a theoretical framework is a recipe for exhaustion and disillusionment. Working within a wider framework gives you the strength to continue, despite setbacks, defeats and losses. Faced with another defeat, it’s very easy to throw up our hands and say ‘that’s it’ – ‘no more’ – I’m going to read books, not get involved and spend all my time in the virtual world. Things don’t have to be so gloomy; there are other options you can explore.

Making the transition from an issue orientated activist to one who takes a wider view is a natural transition to take. You can do this as an individual or as part of a group. Creating new anarchist groups based on affinity, geography and the type of work we do, is the single most important step we can take in the struggle to create a dual power situation that will eventually lead to the overthrow of the political, social and economic order that creates the raft of issues we are faced with today.

Since I was a little boy, I’ve been fascinated by the obelisks that you see in every suburb, town and village that were erected after WWI to remember those who never come back from the ‘war to end all wars’ – World War One. While other children skipped round these memorials, oblivious of their significance, I made an effort to read the names engraved on the monuments, not realising these ‘memorials to sacrifice’ were also memorials to stupidity, ignorance, betrayal and incompetence. I believed the stories about their brave deaths. I believed the stories about sacrifice, freedom and democracy because they were the only stories I was familiar with.

Tragically in 2008, almost 100 years after WWI, we are still regaled with stories of heroism, courage and sacrifice surrounding a war that was fought by workers at either end of a bayonet for the glory of God, King and Country. Since the 1970’s, I’ve been aware that celebrations that are held every year in Australia on the 25th of April are based on obscene lies that have been repeated so often they are now accepted as gospel truth. No one wants to know that Australians were more divided during WWI than at any time during our 107 year history. The history of WWI is a history of betrayal, conspiracy and mass murder committed on the altar of Mammon.

“The I.W.W. (Industrial Workers of the World) not only preach, but practice sabotage. Nor do they stop even here; but, for reasons that will be obvious to every citizen of the Commonwealth in the course of the next few days I will not now catalogue their crimes, except to remind people of the Commonwealth that they are to a man anti conscriptionists. They are all anarchists and enemies of society”. – P.M. Billy Hughes, 1916

Australian Prime Minister Billy Hughes – the father of 60,000 young Australians sacrificed on the European killing fields for the glory of God, King and Country negatively commenting on men and women who spearheaded the Australian anti conscription struggle that prevented another 60,000 young Australians from being sacrificed for God, King and Country on the European killing fields.

NEXT WEEK: The I.W.W. In Australia

Most anarchists’ interpretation of the Spanish Civil war is derived from Jose Peirats’ (1908 – 1989) – the official historian of the CNT’s – version of the events surrounding this pivotal moment in anarchist history. Juan Garcia Oliver’s disagreements with the official CNT historical account, rests on the proposition that Jose Peirats was denied access to important documents that did not allow him to tell the full story about what really happened. This is one of the most exciting interviews I’ve come across because it gives interpretations to events that I have not come across before.

Juan Garcia Oliver’s interpretation throws light on some of the more obvious theoretical failings of anarchism. It is one thing to create the conditions that lead to revolution, but how revolutionary fervour is transformed into political alternatives is another question. Revolution moves in many different directions. Different forces can, in a period of flux and instability, seize the moment. All the talk about the masses seizing power and automatically creating egalitarian structures is, when faced with the reality of a bloodbath, just talk.

Juan Oliver’s ‘My Revolutionary Life’ can be read in two ways. It can be read as an attempt by a man who feels his role in the Spanish Civil War has been misunderstood to justify his role in that movement or it can be read as a criticism of the more nebulous theories that have been propagated about how a political and social movement gives birth to an egalitarian society. This little pamphlet should be obligatory reading for all those anarchists who have doubts about anarchist theoretical positions that, to date, have been found to be wanting.

Juan Garcia Oliver lived through and played a critical role in events that could have led to the establishment of a successful anarchist society. His thoughts on why that transition did not occur should have a bearing on that ongoing discussion about how to bring that journey to create an egalitarian community to a successful conclusion.

‘My Revolutionary Life’ is available from the: -

Kate Sharpley Library, BM Hurricane, London WCIN 3XX, UK. www.katesharpleylibrary.net

‘My Revolutionary Life’ was translated by Paul Sharkey,

1st English translation published by Kate Sharpley Library in 2008.

Personally, I am not surprised by what is happening in East Timor. The East Timorese struggle was essentially a struggle for national liberation. The removal of the Indonesian military jackboot in 1999 had little impact on the new East Timorese government. The East Timorese soon found out that having your own flag, a new national anthem, parliamentary elections and a new Parliament has little, if anything, to do with economic or human liberation. The intervention of the United Nations, Australia and their former colonial masters Portugal shaped the new East Timorese society into the model that is causing so many problems today.

The more radical elements of the Timorese resistance who fought for human and economic liberation were soon marginalised and excluded from the ‘new’ East Timor. The East Timorese soon found out that people can’t eat and drink nation anthems. The collective strength of the movement dissipated into a quasi colonial model where the locals where expected to work as wage slaves in the foreign owned factories that would bring wealth to the people of East Timor. The rich direct democratic and collective traditions which served the East Timorese resistance for so long were put aside for representative democracy, wage slavery and religion. The new emerging political classes turned out to be the old ruling classes in a new guise.

As an anarchist, I support struggles for both human and economic liberation. National liberations movements as we are seeing in the post colonial age, have the unhappy knack of recreating the very conditions people have rebelled against in the first place. I am not really disappointed by what has happened in East Timor, but I am saddened that a resistance movement that showed so much courage and promise, marginalised the very resistance fighters, who gave their all for a social revolution founded on the principles of human and economic liberation. If these resistance fighters had been allowed to play a more prominent role in the ‘new’ East Timor, I do not believe the country would be going through the major problems it is currently experiencing.

To further complicate matters, those media outlets that have given increasing greenhouse emissions the oxygen of publicity (sorry for the bad pun), have put all their eggs in the carbon trading and green capitalist basket. It seems that no one is willing to mention the elephant in the lounge room – capitalism.

Everywhere we turn, we are told that we should let ‘the market’ work out the problem of increasing greenhouse emissions. Talk about making Dracula the head of the Blood Bank. How can anybody with even one synapsing neurone expect people to believe that the men and women who own and run an economic system, that is dependent on making ever increasing profits, irrespective of the human and social costs, are able to reform themselves? Only a fool would believe that left to their own devices, people who would sell you the last train ticket to the man made hell they have created - would want to, let alone, be capable of reforming themselves.

Greenhouse emissions are real, they are man made, they have occurred because the world has embraced an economic system that must create ever increasing profits, irrespective of the human and social costs. As the world moves from a period of relative abundance to a period of scarcity, it’s time to adopt economic practices that can best deal with the problems associated with scarcity. We need an economic system based on co-operation not competition, where wealth is held in common and used for the common good, to have a chance at tackling increasing greenhouse emissions.

To continue to support the very economic and political processes that have created the very real problems we face as individuals and a community is sheer lunacy. It’s time the fourth estate turned round and mentioned the presence of the elephant in the living room.

UMANITA NOVA Vol 88 No.3 EL 27th JAN 2008, Settimanale Anarchico, C.50 Palermo 46, 10152, Torino ITALY.
Tel/Fax : (011) 857850
Mobile : 338-6594361
Email : fat@inrete.it

Write to:

AKIN SARI, c/- Port Phillip Prison,
P.O. BOX 376, Laverton 3080,
Melbourne, Victoria, AUSTRALIA

SENTENCING PLEA to be continued
10.30am MONDAY 11th FEBRUARY 2008
Victorian County Court. (250 William St, Melbourne)

“We swear by the Southern Cross to stand truly by each other & fight to defend our rights & liberties”

NOMINATION CLOSE – 31st OCTOBER 2008

Send in one nomination or as many as you like. Send us the following information:

• The name of the person nominated
  
  
• A few sentences outlining why they should receive the award
  
  
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• The person you nominate can be a public figure or somebody only known to a few people.

SEND YOUR NOMINATIONS ASAP TO

EUREKA AUSTRALIA DAY MEDAL
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or email your nomination to anarchistage@yahoo.com

“SEDITION – Conduct or speech inciting to rebellion”

SIGN THE SEDITION CHARTER ONLINE - www.seditioncharter.org

If you’re computer literate and many of us are not, write to us for a copy of the Sedition Charter, at :

P.O. BOX 5035,
ALPHINGTON 3078,
MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA

Terrible things happen when good people do nothing. Openly defy this government’s attempts to muzzle and intimidate opposition to their neo conservative authoritarian agenda – SIGN the ‘Sedition Charter’ TODAY!

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 120 Paid Up Members)

DIRECT DEMOCRACY NOT PARLIAMENTARY RULE - www.rulebythepeople.org

At 11.30am - WEDNESDAY 13th February 2008

Come & join us & demand a Royal Commission into the links between corrupt business, police & political Interests & organised crime in Victoria – All welcome

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.

2BAY, 2BBB, 2BLU, 2DRY, 2HOT, 2OCB, 2WOW, 2XX, 3CH, 3CR, 36CR, 3MGB, 3REG, 4NAG, 4RRR, 5BBB, 5RRR, 6YCR

MULTI-COLOURED GLOSSY A3 POSTER AVAILABLE FOR 20 50c STAMPS.
(Price includes packaging, poster in secure cylinder and postage anywhere in Australia)

‘LIFE WASN’T MEANT TO BE EASY’

Go to www.3CR.org.au to access the podcast.

The Anarchist Savants Monthly
P.O. Box 43
Clunes 3370, VIC, AUSTRALIA.

Or email Andrew directly on andrewpstretton@yahoo.com.au for further info.

Come out to a great gig on Sat, 9th February at the Noise Bar in Brunswick.

8 Great Bands - *Rock* *Funk* *Folk* - Dj and Comedians

The Shivering Timbers, Go Genre Everything, The Nervous Pilots, Green Green Green, Emma Tonkin, It’ll Be Sweet, Hey Pilot and Loukia.

Homemade Veggie Food - Cheap! Help support APEC arrestee Marcela and stand up for the right to protest. - $10 cover – all door charges and food sales go straight to helping out.

Using unnecessary force and intimidation, police arrested peaceful protesters at the end of the rally at the APEC summit in Sydney in September 2007. While filming these police actions, Melbourne-based independent filmmaker Marcela Olea was arrested and her gear destroyed. She now faces two charges of assaulting police and one charge of resisting arrest. Expenses for travel, court, counseling and equipment replacement have and will take an immense toll on her and her family.

Support the right to peaceful protest without police intimidation.

Support independent media. For any questions

contact Daniella Olea on 0404 189 272 or email daniellaolea@hotmail.com

Students at a Catholic school bullied a fellow student for being Jewish until his parents were forced to transfer him to another school & school authorities did little or nothing to stop them, acc to the boy's parents. The Yr7 student & his younger brother were sent to Waverley College in Sydney's east for a broader education. However the older boy became the butt of racial taunts as students questioned his right to be there. His father, Saul Ellison, said students played "The Jew Game", in which a $5 note was thrown on the ground to see if the Jewish boy would pick it up. Mr Ellison & his wife Janine said they lodged a complaint with the Christian Brothers school but weren’t satisfied with the action it had taken. "We never heard of any disciplinary action or suspensions...the school claimed the perpetrators had been spoken to," Mr Ellison said. The Ellisons also asked to have their son exempted from attending a sports carnival b/c he was required for bar mitzvah lessons. The college threatened to suspend him if he didn't attend. Waverley College Deputy Headmaster, Peter Frost, said the school was "unashamedly Catholic & that is part & parcel of what we do here". (Daily Telegraph)

Nearly a 1/3 of antidepressant drug studies are never published in the medical literature, nearly all of them showing the drug being tested didn’t work, acc to new research. The research team, led by Erick Turner of the Oregon Health & Science Uni, also reported that in some of the studies that are published, unfavorable results have been recast to make the medicine appear more effective than it really is. Of the 38 studies that produced positive results, 37 were published. Of the 36 studies with negative or questionable results, 3 were published as is, 11 were turned around & written as if the drug had worked & the remaining 22 weren’t published. (Reuters)

QUOTE OF THE MOMENT: "A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education & social ties & needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment & hope of reward after death." - Albert Einstein.