Intresting notion that Robin Cook was murdered,I had thought this when it was reported that he had suffered a heart attack while walking up a mountain. I thought that all cabinet members had security forces protection around them at ALL times!!??
Brings back that old question on the ex-labour leader John Smith.
Ousted by new labour Blairites? Food for thought!!??

I think that if no one voted then that might leave us in danger of the BNP.

Vote even if its a party you don't aggree with, Lib Dems might be ok for local elections,
I don't know but get the New ToryLabour guys out!

It might mean that people were ready to bring down the whole fucking system and its institutions. That day would be a blessing. Dont vote. Theyre all the same blood drenched bastards.

If you don't believe in a system, it seems completely wrong to support it by participating in this phony democracy (or so it seems to me). You may as well join the hypocritical bastards at the heart of government. ("I'm against the war in Iraq, but have joined the Labour party!)
We can step outside the system and create a way of living that actually meets our needs : concensus, community, peaceful interactions. Yeah - sure it's idealsitic, but I'd rather be accused of trying to attain an ideal than voting in a system I despise and know to be unfair and a lie.

is that its method of organisation inherently overides individual autonomy.

the basic fact is that it doesn't matter if you vote or not - you won't instigate change through the ballot box, as its the very system we should oppose.

regardless of how/if you vote, engage just once in direct action and you will have done more for democracy than a lifetime of voting will ever do.

it just hasn't been attempted yet.

You know in the dark ages, democracy used to be be a bad word that implied social inequality and mass-disruption. Sort of like anarchy is today.

"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they attack you, then you win."

"Journalist: Mr. Gandhi, what do you think of western civilization?
Mahatma Gandhi: I think it would be a very good idea!"

Interesting comments - particularly that one.

For all you diehard anarchists out there, might I respectfully recommend you read Hugh Thomas's "The Spanish Civil War"? If you study this eminently readable history, you will be forcefully reminded of Emma Goodman's words = "Violence from the bottom just provokes greater violence from the top"

Gandhi also said "BE the change you want to see in the world" - he didn't reject _communal_, inclusive approaches to ousting a repressive empire, did he?

'The System' is not going to be changed overnight (that's why I listed the major forces arrayed against common people). The crux is psychopathy - until this is eradicated amongst would-be leaders, we can only go on suffering this present insanity.

Vote - don't ignore, as a party with 1% of the electorate behind them could still grab power if no-one else shows. You really want this country to go to the British Nazi Party?

Respect! *Or if you're convinced there's something behind the present climate change hoohaa, maybe the meme should be VOTE GREEN OR DIE! ?

I think most anarchists will be more impressed with Emma Goldmans edict 'If voting changed anything they'd make it illegal'. Goldmann sometimes changed her wonderful epithets according to her circumstances though, as she grew as a person, as the times changed. Half her lovers were assassins though, I am still waiting for one of you to remove Tony Blair from office that way. I guess you were waiting on me.

Noam Chomsky recommended US people to vote against Bush in the last election. He took a lot of stick from other anarchists for doing so. He wasn't recommending Kerry as a benign saviour though, just acknowledging the smell of sulphur that Bush leaves in his wake. negative voting may not help, but it doesn't hurt and it doesn't 'give creedence to the system'.

In retrospect, we missed an opportunity to link up two good campaigns. If only us Scottish anarchists had invited the rest of you up here a few weeks ago, you could have not voted in your own constituencies and still voted up here to kill the British state. Assuming we do get an independent parliament, you are all welcome up here for the referendum vote. And all the English natonalists too, those of you who hate 'Scottish whingers' - hold your noses, move up here for month and vote for the national divorce.

If there's one thing all the political leaders agree on - Blair, Cameron, the lot of them - plus all the mainstream newspapers, it's that you should go out and vote.
And that's why you shouldn't.

Voting is to participate in the system that we would otherwise despise and oppose. Not voting is as useless as voting. It is the curse of the citizen who has been indoctrinated that democracy is an imperfect system, but still reflects the voice of the people. I'm not sure how it can recover (if it ever had) its validity.

As for the ideas that we should follow Gandhi and that violence from the bottom creates more violence from the top - these are useless idioms of surrender. Brush up on some new thinkers - Ward Churchill, Derrick Jensen, even John Zerzan to some extent - we need a different strategy to tackle these muthers in power, sitting atop a system that enriches them while it enslaves others and that, through the reproduction of consumerism on a global scale, has accelerated the demise of species, including ourselves. The plethora of species diversity is under radical and irrevocable threat - our collective (human and non-human) backs are against the wall. It's fight or die.

We need people to think bigger than the dross presented as news on Fox and Sky and the BBC. We need to think beyond our narrow arrogant anthropocentric ignorance. We need people to assume leadership for themselves and together, explicitly including the multitude of biota that inhabit this planet. The Greens are the only ones with a chance of doing anything halfway meaningful. The Greens have to get in, otherwise it is only going to be more business as usual, more greenwash, panoptic surveillance and control, more exploitation and usury, more degradation, more pork-barreling .... more - and that is the anti-thesis of what the global ecosystem needs now, I'd venture. The global/planetary ecosystem requires less ... particularly less of humanity and its destructive footprint.

Vote Green if you feel compelled to vote - I will, because I still cling desperately to hope - and prepare to radically alter your life regardless who gets in. The planet - and ourselves, those who care - can't take much more of this.

>As for the ideas that we should follow Gandhi and that violence from the bottom creates more violence from the top - these are useless idioms of surrender.

Be fair, nobody said that. The quotes were just apt.

>Brush up on some new thinkers - Ward Churchill, Derrick Jensen, even John Zerzan to some extent

I would slag you off for quoting old thinkers but I don't know who Jensen is. So thanks I guess. Public health Warning:don't read Zerzan unless you have Prozac to hand. Immiseration personified.

>It's fight or die.

Or both.

>We need to think beyond our narrow arrogant anthropocentric ignorance.

Damn, anthropocentric out-trumps even Anglocentric doesn't it ?

>The Greens are the only ones with a chance of doing anything halfway meaningful.

Ah, but not where I live you see.

>The Greens have to get in, otherwise it is only going to be more business as usual, more greenwash, panoptic surveillance and control, more exploitation and usury, more degradation, more pork-barreling .... more - and that is the anti-thesis of what the global ecosystem needs now, I'd venture. The global/planetary ecosystem requires less ... particularly less of humanity and its destructive footprint.

Well, you should be voting NuLabour, they have reduced the human footprints by a few million.

>Vote Green if you feel compelled to vote - I will, because I still cling desperately to hope - and prepare to radically alter your life regardless who gets in. The planet - and ourselves, those who care - can't take much more of this.


So moe to Scotland ! Big wide open spaces, lots of wildlife, lots of renewables....just vote pro-Independence - that includes the Scottish Greens.

Voting green will be taken as permission from the electorate for a right-wing government to raise taxes for consumers (but not industry) that will affect the less well off the most – thus creating more inequality, crime etc…

“If there's one thing all the political leaders agree on - Blair, Cameron, the lot of them - plus all the mainstream newspapers, it's that you should go out and vote.”

Bollocks! Our voting system relies on the most despondent not to vote. Think about it. If the anarchists, the socialists and the greens formed a coalition for just 10 years we could change the world forever. Blair, Cameron, the lot of them certainly don’t want you to vote for George Galloway’s coalition because it includes anarchists, socialists and greens who apparently realise we have to get together sooner or later. Respect are the biggest threat to neo-liberalism today.

Join forces. Form a unity coalition and change the world. Another world is possible.

Your invitation is most welcomed - thanks. I might just have to take you up on it ... space, no adverts and there are no politicians "glad-handing" their way around the real issues out in the wilds.

Too bad that the Greens don't seem to be doing much up there! Thought about getting involved directly?

Zerzan - yep, gotcha!! Cuts to the chase though, counterbalanced with a healthy dose of Mumford.

Anyway, voting or not voting ... the saga will continue with the moneyed and the politically powerful getting away with all kinds of business while "furriners" are blown into bits with UK plc. missiles and armaments, we are subjected increasingly to surveillance by remote control, and the world is rapidly converted from life to a commercial resource to another area of landfill, GHG, or waterborne pollutant.

Pull the plug, or in the memorable words of James Maynard Keenan (Tool), after Master Bill Hicks: "Mom, just flush it all away, I'll see you down in Arizona Bay"!

ciao

Reader - your post has gotten me listening. Tell us more ....

That Ghandi quote has to be the best quote in the world and no one should ever be admonished for using it ever no matter how tenuous the opportunity! In fact, fuck having a load of old slave traders in George Square. Let's petition for a Ghandi statue with that inscription.

The second best quote:

Interviewer to John Lennon: Is Ringo Starr the best drummer in the World?
JL: He isn't even the best drummer in the Beatles.

 http://www.respectcoalition.org/pdf/f473.pdf

Doctor doctor,


>Your invitation is most welcomed - thanks. I might just have to take you up on it ... space, no adverts and there are no politicians "glad-handing" their way around the real issues out in the wilds.

I said we have space...unfortunately, for the next week, we have every NuLab politician suddenly claiming residency here too. And adverts coming out of our ears, but all the better to subvert.

>Too bad that the Greens don't seem to be doing much up there! Thought about getting involved directly?

Oh, I am the Scottish Greens worst enemy but even I have to point out there are more Scottish Green MSPs than there will ever be in Westminster, they are far from inactive even if they get little press down south. I am an anarchist and am only supporting a political party temporaily because they bribed me with the likely end of the British state, the removal of trident and and no more foriegn wars. I have been 'groomed' by the SNP as surely as a poor child offered confectionary and a train set by a dirty old man. I just hope they deliver now I've prostituted my beliefs out.

>Zerzan - yep, gotcha!! Cuts to the chase though, counterbalanced with a healthy dose of Mumford.
As long as GlaxoSmithKlyne don't manufacture Mumford then I will take them as your second book tip. I suppose a sunny day like tody is a safe day to recommend Zerzan. Brilliant author, but still, you wouldn't want to be him. He is like the anti-Mark Thomas. Slipping someone a Zerzan book is like slipping them strychnine. But less fun. I'll search for Mumford though - got a first name ?

>Anyway, voting or not voting ... the saga will continue with the moneyed and the politically powerful getting away with all kinds of business while "furriners" are blown into bits with UK plc.

See, I am so impressed with your intellect I even googled 'furriners' thinking it was some arcane political group. Duh. Furriners as is people not from Engerland.

>missiles and armaments, we are subjected increasingly to surveillance by remote control, and the world is rapidly converted from life to a commercial resource to another area of landfill, GHG, or waterborne pollutant.

Now I'm going to have to google for GHG. You use tend to use one word when twenty would do.

>Pull the plug, or in the memorable words of James Maynard Keenan (Tool), after Master Bill Hicks: "Mom, just flush it all away, I'll see you down in Arizona Bay"!

Bill I know at least. Ciao to you to, or rather, see ya soon.



Sweaty Sock,

I am unsure whch of the Gandhi quotes you are both referring to.

And btw it is Gandhi not Ghandi. And it is John Lenin not John Lennon. Ilya's grandson, another working class hero too, no ?

Vote Nobody Next Federal Election
By The Ants..... Friday April 27, 2007 at 12:51 PM

People want things to change but when ask what they think will change it they ask for more of the same? If things are going to change then they're never going to change whilst people give validity and credibility to a totally flawed system.

================================
Federal elections are coming up and it's the same old joke as usual - a "choice" that isn't one! Instead of not voting, how about voting for Nobody?

You should vote for Nobody, because:

- Nobody keeps election promises.
- Nobody has all the answers.
- Nobody will represent you.
- Nobody will improve your community.
- Nobody has your best interests at heart.
- Nobody will make a real difference!
- A vote for Nobody is a vote for Everybody!

OK, seriously now...

People want things to change but when ask what they think will change it they ask for more of the same? If things are going to change then they're never going to change whilst people give validity and credibility to a totally flawed system.

It's not just about making a mockery of the farce that is "representative" democracy. It's also about producing more spoiled ballot papers with "Nobody" scrawled across them than the official winning candidate, thus undermining their "legitimacy" (as if they ever had any) to push the same old business-friendly, community-trashing policies that they always do, regardless of who gets in.

But whoever wins, ordinary people always lose! Nobody will change that, so vote for Nobody next Federal Election.

VOTE NOBODY!
by Adam

[VOTING IS NOT AN EXPRESSION OF POWER, BUT AN ADMISSION OF POWERLESSNESS.

WHOEVER YOU VOTE FOR, THE GOVERNMENT ALWAYS WINS. ]

NEVER MIND THE BALLOTS!

Instead of the current system of pseudo-democracy we believe in Direct democracy which is based on equal participation. In order to be free & happy, we need to run our communities, our workplaces & our own lives.

Freedom is a way of organising society in which everyone has an equal say on how things are run.

Freedom is about standing up for ourselves and resisting unfairness; it is about sharing resource so everyone has what they need and it’s about creating a more peaceful world where we are free from poverty, violence and war.

Free people believe there are alternatives to the current political system where a minority force their decisions on a majority and where a few people hold all the power and wealth.

We want accountable delegates rather than careerist politicians, shared ownership rather than private profit, human need rather than economic growth, & mutual aid rather than Investers Rights Agreements.

Politicians say “vote for me!”

We say VOTE NOBODY!

And start organising for ourselves!

WE’RE VOTING NOBODY BECAUSE...

”Choosing between politicians in our fake democracy is like choosing between Coke and Pepsi – they’re all the same, just with slightly different packaging” “Putting an ‘X’ in a box every 4 or 5 years is not real democracy.

I’m fed up of seeing politicians forgetting about the promises they made to improve our lives once they’re in power.”

“I’m sick of accepting the least worst candidate. Every one of us deserves to have a say in the way our own lives are run. I’m voting nobody and starting to represent myself!”

“Nobody on the ballot represents me, and the very nature of the system means Nobody ever will. Nobody cares about the things we’re really passionate about, and nobody will fight for them except us”

“All politicians are liars - they’ll all keep privatizing everything and crapping on ordinary people”

Vote for Nobody for Victory and remember the Ants.....

Show them that we're not happy with the current system of unfairness this Federal Election. Help get the word out and pass this on to all your networks.

1 Ant can't act alone but in Australia 16 Million Ants can..........!

Don't Vote! It only encourages them.

 http://www.myspace.com/votenobody
 http://www.ANARCHISMFAQ.ORG
 http://www.SOUTHWALESANARCHISTS.ORG

Written and authorised by Adam Ant for the Ants...

================================

So far I've managed to note that these things are missing in our so-called "democracy." The democracy you may think you have doesn't exist in Australia today!!!

We are calling for an abundance of people who don't believe in the official truth, which is a MONSTER and a lie all the days of your life, to vote for Nobody.

So Just Vote for Nobody This Federal Election

You don't live in a democracy you live in a pseudo democracy. The democracy you have when you don't have a democracy. Which is a dictatorship!

You don't need a dictatorship! You're not a sheepy.

If John Howard and Kevin Rudd are a democracy then where is the Senate?

COAG is not a Senate! If every time you vote you get a Labor State or Territory and a Liberal Coalition National Govt then you live in a dictatorship.

By the way what would happen with COAG if one party ruled both the National and State and Territory affairs? DICTATORSHIP.

But if you consider that being a well-paid loser isn't a bad job and pays well then also consider the handshake between Lib/Lab that is a virtual one party.

For instance:

Where is the opposition to WAR?

Where is the opposition to WAR Crimes?

Where is the opposition to Draconian Laws?

Where is the opposition to Refugee Detainment?

Where is the opposition to David Hicks 5 year detention?

Where is the opposition to the AWB scandal?

Where is the opposition to Islamophobia?

Where is the opposition to Political Scapegoating?

Where is the opposition to Neo-Colonialism?

Where is the opposition to False Flag Operations by the CIA?

Where is the opposition to the FTA 'Investors Rights Agreement'?

Where is the opposition to HIV Discrimination?

Where is the opposition to the Privatisation of Health?

Where is the opposition to Desecrating and Ignoring Aboriginal Affairs?

Where is the opposition to subordinating Scientific and Medical Research?

Where is the opposition to No WorkChoices?

Where is the opposition to Social Services Reform?

Where is the opposition to Desperate and Disabled to Work?

Where is the opposition to 6 weeks Social Security Payments Cut Off's?

Where is the opposition to Work for the Dole instead of Getting Better Education and Skills for Better Employment Opportunities?

Where is the opposition to Rorting the Social Security System by Corporate Greed?

Related:

The Real Dole Bludgers

Unemployment figures scandal story (longish)

On the surface it was not too bad an experience. I got a nice redundancy package and almost immediately was able to gain employment in the new privatised sector at a higher salary. Financially it was good. I was deemed to have performed so well for my first “provider” that, when they failed to get a renewal on their contract, I was able to get a new job that was effectively a promotion, managing one of the suburban outlets of my second. Nor, on paper at least, had I thus been promoted to the level of my incompetence (an ambition I eagerly look forward to fulfilling). I got good results in this role, was made “employee of the month” and won generous, tax-free bonuses.

 http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2007/03/142867.php

Scrap Growing Esteem
Say NO to cuts in education

In reality the university has decided to go down this road not because of the educational merits but for reasons of status and profit. In 2005, when the model was first proposed, the Vice Chancellor highlighted that over the past 25 years guaranteed federal funding has gone from 90% to 23% of university revenue. Therefore the university perceived two choices, continue to grow at the current rate or opt for a radical rethink.

 http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2007/04/143707.php

Mr Speaker!

For arguments sake let's say Lab just happened not to throw the election by coming up with say, an anti strike policy? Just Hypothetical of course?

Then say Lab wins! Yay! No?

At the next COAG meeting there is no real opposition to new Anti-Terror laws for opening your mouth more than five times in one day?

Labor agrees with Labor that that's okay now. No one argued at all!

Then on that basis Lab does what it wants?

So how does that work? Come on smarty I'm just stupid! Never went to school either!

Now I put it to you clearly as my proposition that in fact, Labor cannot Win on that basis because the Neo-Liberal Coalition would not allow it, for a start!

Who controls everything? They do!

The second point is that it wouldn't look right to the general public if and when a controversial issue come up.

What line of defence has either Lib or Lab come up with as a proposition to an event whereby one part ruled States, Territories, and the Central Gov't?

I rest my case!

Mr Speaker!

========================

What did I say!
=================

Business Council calls for COAG overhaul

The Business Council of Australia says the current Council of Australian Governments (COAG) model needs to be overhauled because it is [incapable of addressing important national issues.]

The BCA says the relation between the federal and state governments is one of five key areas that politicians should focus on reforming as part of their federal election promises.

The BCA's president Michael Chaney says an overhaul of COAG will help make any reforms more effective.

[THE LIES]

"We simply can't afford a system of federal state relations which meets only occasionally, this year just once for half a day, decides erratically and follows through irregularly," he said.

"Businesses have really stopped believing in the effectiveness of COAG as it currently stands." [LIES]

Mr Chaney says reforming state-federal relations is the key to progress in education, workplace relations and business regulation.

"Frankly if the states aren't prepared to make regulatory reform a priority issue, it makes sense of the Commonwealth to take over responsibility for business rules and regulations that are inefficient and inconsistent," he said.

"They've made life very costly and cumbersome for businesses operating in this country."

 http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200704/s1899792.htm

COAG is only for PNAC Neo-Liberal Dictators! This is just a nonsense by the Business Council to say that under a Labor Gov't considering they have control of the STATES and TERRITORIES THAT COAG CAN'T WORK.

OF COURSE IT CAN'T WORK!

That's the real reason because it can't work if one party ruled the nation can it? DICTATORSHIP!

'Outraged' business council may fund IR ads

The Business Council of Australia (BCA) is considering funding its own advertising campaign to counter union commercials on industrial relations.

 http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200704/s1903536.htm

Time to go to war with your country?

Unemployed to be offered jobs in war forces. She says the scheme will provide opportunities to unemployed people who would not otherwise have considered a job in the ADF?

 http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2007/04/143481.php

HOUSING - A HUMAN RIGHT

The news that the French government has drafted a law to give everyone a legally enforceable right to housing should be of interest to the 100,000 homeless people in Australia.

 http://www.melbourneunitarian.org.au/beacon/beacon200703

Youth homelessness inquiry head tells of 'crisis point'

A national inquiry into youth homelessness has been told an accommodation shortage is one of the main reasons the problem is getting worse. It is estimated there are about 35,000 young homeless people in Australia and the number is rising.

 http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200704/s1898291.htm

'participatory democracy'
by Spandau Ballet

Firstly, I do not see a single candidate I want to speak on behalf of me. Why should I 'participate' in a system which does not represent me?

Secondly, our only option to 'participate' is limited to once every three years or so. Ticking a box in secret is hardly 'participatory'.

Thirdly, if we DO 'participate' our voices are nothing, when the elected few make decisions which we have NO say whatsoever. For example, despite 90% opposition to Iraq invasion - our leaders took us there.

Stop putting fuel in a car that has no wheels.

Abstain.

Democratic Lost Property?

These things are all missing in your so-called "democracy" the democracy you think you have!

We are calling for an abundance of people who don't believe in the official truth, which is a MONSTER and a lie all the days of your life, to vote for Nobody.

If things are going to change then they're never going to change whilst people give validity and credibility to a totally flawed system.

That means you'll be looking at Lib/Lab until the day you die!

Bush (Custer) Last Stand In Iraq - War Drums in Washington

The majority of American citizens have the delusion that they actually decide who governs them, when in practice the Democrats and Republicans are only two wings of the same ruling class that owns Congress, just as it owns the land, the banks and big corporations, the newspapers, and radio and television companies.

 http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2007/02/139901.php

Stop Voting - Stop Supporting Pseudo Democracies

Just as communicating with the Feds about abandoning the way we live now is a futile process that only buttresses the legitimacy of old ways of thinking and living, continuing to vote within centralised political processes only reinforces their continuing relevance. Citizens who continue to reside within totalitarian-democracies can, at least partly, abandon them by not voting at elections that will never lead to abundance and a better way of living.

 http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/05/113003.php

=========================================

War criminals need time, not a timetable: Community

Not only has Labor left the Iraqi's in the lurch by being complicit in the illegal and degrading act of aggression killing over 655,000 people in a holocaust but now they say, after the fact, that they won't leave the Iraqi's in the lurch. So why have we been left in the lurch?

 http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2007/03/142514.php

THE MONSTER

The MONSTER destroys itself, so why do we fight the MONSTER? Why not just build our own world? Think of cost benefit of our time, money and our investment in building a new world - opposed to trying to stop the MONSTER who is always right. I know! We might save some lives! Nah! The monster said… that those people had to die and they'll have to lock people up if they disagree. So we say… well lock us up then. And they do! Then they go off and continue to do the killing while people are locked up. Because that was the right thing to do - because they were just terrorists and you were just a wild animal that doesn't understand capitalism and the way the system works. I know! We'll stop the war in Iraq? But Afghanistan is okay so well just keep on building democracy over there?

 http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2007/03/142427.php

Lib/Lab Truth Scale TV

Yeah there was Johnny Howard lecturing about how the Liberals could lead NSW with a Peter Debnam's 'Let's fix NSW' campaign. But the way I see it they know how to 'fix it', all right! In more criminal ways than one. You just have to think like a war criminal and invite the spirits in for a chat about history...

 http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2007/03/141967.php

THE POLITICS OF CRIME IN AUSTRALIA TODAY

How is it that Prime Minister John Howard can accuse other people of some crime or lies? No, you do not need to be clairvoyant or have any special supernatural talents to meet up with or to see one of the more see-through inhabitants of politics in Australia today. You just need a strong heart and an eager mind. While other people, who are being accused, belittled, tainted or desecrated by numerous criminal politicians and their media allies. Politicians who don't lead us by any form of example and who break their own morals, principals, values, and ethics. Politicians who break their own laws in order to deceive us and to suit their own political ends.

 http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2007/03/141552.php

Australia: The New 51st State

John Howard's servility to the US is even greater than Tony Blair's and has earned him the nickname Bush's deputy sheriff. The conspiracy between Washington, the media and politicians is eroding the country's freedoms

 http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2007/03/141471.php

If you're waiting for Lib/Lab then you're just waiting for a catastrophe!

What about all the scapegoats the Howard government has produced for their war on terror/resources? Most, still languishing in isolated segregation prisons and still waiting to be heard. Rendition and torture of our citizens? 20 years for thought crimes? Jury asked to push on when they couldn't make up their mind? Rules of evidence and standards lowered in our local courts? 5 years in Guantanamo without trial or charge? Military style Kangaroo Courts, Control Orders? Detention Orders? Indefinite Detention? Then we have Australian citizens being held in detention and even being deported?

 http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2007/02/139474.php

Possible Torres Strait survivor sightings ignored, inquest hears

The coronial inquest into the sinking of an Immigration Department boat in 2005 in the Torres Strait, in far north Queensland, has heard survivors may have been spotted alive in the water during the rescue search.

 http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200704/s1898834.htm

Rescue expert blasts efforts to find Immigration boat

One of Australia's top search and rescue experts has compiled a damning report about efforts to find an Immigration Department boat that went missing in the Torres Strait more than a year ago.

 http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2007/04/143792_comment.php#143831

US/Australia: Refugee Deal Trades in Human Lives

(New York, April 18, 2007) – A deal between the United States and Australia to trade refugees housed at Guantanamo Bay for those held on the island nation of Nauru upends international refugee standards, Human Rights Watch said today.

 http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2007/04/143799.php

Australian governments covered up 1975 execution of “Balibo Five” newsmen

A coronial inquest, due to resume in Sydney next month, has produced telling new evidence of a cover-up, orchestrated by every Australian government since 1975, of the facts surrounding the execution of five Australian-based newsmen in the lead-up to the Indonesian invasion of East Timor.

 http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/apr2007/balib-a21.shtml

John Howard's Terror Tactics

Minister denies Adelaide using last 40 days of water

The South Australian Government says claims that Adelaide has only 40 days of water supply left are incorrect.

 http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2007/04/143857_comment.php#143878

 http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200704/s1903562.htm

Anyone interested in war criminal John Howard's vision for 2020?

War criminal John Howard outlines vision for 2020?

 http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2007/04/143935_comment.php#143945

Australian government argues for mass detention power in “war on terror”

The solicitor-general specifically cited the September 2005 Council of Australian Governments communiqué, in which Prime Minister John Howard and the state and territory leaders declared: “A terrorist attack in Australia continue to be feasible and could occur.” The communiqué unveiled draconian new “counter-terrorism” laws, including control orders and “preventative detention”.

 http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2007/04/143981.php

'X marks the spot': ICANW launch in Melbourne

The Australian branch of the International Campaign against Nuclear Weapons announced its official launch today at Parliament House in Melbourne...

 http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2007/04/143939.php

British Lancet medical journal calls for defeat of Australian government

The editorial condemned “Prime Minister John Howard’s indifference to the academic medical community and his profound intolerance to those less secure than himself and his administration”. As the latest example, it cited Howard’s comment on a Melbourne radio station last week, declaring that people living with HIV should not be allowed to enter and live in Australia.

 http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2007/04/144115.php

my question with your otherwise excellent post and set of references:-

If only 1% of the electorate voted and _they_ all voted for more control (this would apply mainly to retired people fearful of yoof, as in France, where it looks like a neocon/zionist is going to get in) how would you feel living under the BNP for at least four years? Or in Oz, someone even worse than Howard the Coward?

@danny - great comments and my apologies for conflating Emma Goldman with Amy Goodman!

Vote Respect and at least get a respite... Read up on Galloway - look at his Senate hearings, check his corruption level (zilch - quite some record for a politician, is it not?) and his recent brave and impassioned speech in parliament calling Bliar a criminal.

Don't get me wrong; my deepest belief is in the autonomy of the individual not in a cult of personality but it is merely dreaming to think that averting total global meltdown will be best served by ignoring what the fat cats have in store for us - we can but 'stuff our finger up the dyke' and stave off the day very soon to come, when we're all consigned to privatised Sodexho 'homes for the disaffected'...

And as for reading, may I suggest scroogling 'Ponerology'...?

---

Don't like what Gooogle's doing with your search data? then try:-

 http://www.scroogle.org/cgi-bin/scraper.htm

Danny said: "If only us Scottish anarchists had invited the rest of you up here a few weeks ago, you could have not voted in your own constituencies and still voted up here to kill the British state. Assuming we do get an independent parliament, you are all welcome up here for the referendum vote. And all the English natonalists too, those of you who hate 'Scottish whingers' - hold your noses, move up here for month and vote for the national divorce."

Not quite sure how what you're arguing fits in with anarchism. I always thought being against the state meant actually being against the state, not voting for Scottish independence in order to create a new state. If you're in favour of a Scottish state (which would be a capitalist state as there can't be any other type) then are you in favour of voting SNP in elections as well? Or SSP? Surely its about arguing for an anarchist position rather than choosing between the unionist-independence positions?

I will be voting SNP simply as they are the biggest pro-independence party, but the Scottish Greens, the SSP and Solidarity are all pro-independence too. I will be giving all these parties a vote ( different voting system up here, STV ). I am an anarchist but I'm a pacifist too, and anti-nuclear, and I see voting this once as a small price to pay to end the British state, get Scottish troops back from Iraq and out of NATO, and get Trident evicted. I still argue for anarchism, the Nats know I am an anarchist and that I will be opposing them after the referendum. The Scottish Parliament voted itself out of existence for English gold and has no right to exist in my view. However it will be easier arguing for anarchism in an independent Scotland - smaller state, no MI5 harrassment etc.

I am not voting FOR a Scottish state, I am voting AGAINST the British state. I don't know if this fits in with anarchism but sometimes it is better to be pragmatic than dogmatic.

“I am an anarchist but I'm a pacifist too”

Mmm, well I am against the Iraq war, against the Afghan war, against Israels invasion of Lebanon, and have done more to oppose those wars than anyone else I know persoanlly except two female anarchists. So unless you are are one of those two females, I hope you choke on it.

I nearly pebbled dashed my monitor with welshcake.

Aren’t you the same “pacifist” who favors potentially violent direct action as oppose to STWC methods of protest?

I'm intrigued now as to why the coupling of those two words should made someone choke with laughter?

Not everyone advocates chucking bricks at policeman at demos, smashing property etc. for the sheer hell of it. That kind of "anarchist" is thankfully a very small minority- and not wishing to sound like I'm in denial but there are a lot of instances of underhand tactics by the state too (Genoa; Seattle, and various London MayDays...)

Ever been on a demo when the police bottle neck movement with SPG/TSG officers standing rapping their truncheons off their shields and charge in hitting ANYONE that runs?

I have also been in situations where I have quite clearly seen (apparent) SWPees (trots not anarchists) have started the whole thing off with a rain of missles.

But I have yet to see a detachment of horse-mounted anarchists charge down policemen and legal monitors or effectively kidnap people. I have yet to see a group of anatchists conspire to lie to have a policeman wrongfully convicted. I have also yet to witnesss any anarchist group invest other poor people's money in industrial facilities designed for killing and attack someone else's country.

"Aren’t you the same “pacifist” who favors potentially violent direct action as oppose to STWC methods of protest?"

I'm confused, what STWC tactics - do you mean marches, sit-downs and signing petitions ? And what does potentially violent direct action mean ? If someone managed to assasinate Blair and Brown and I was on their jury, I would refuse to convict them. If an international tribunal found Blair guilty of warcrimes, sentenced him to hang and they couldn't find a hangman, I would volunteer evn though I am opposed to the death penalty. I'm not claiming to be Jesus or Gandhi. Perhaps I should have called myself an anti-war protestor rather than a pacifist, my apologies for the confusion.

"I'm of course opposed to terror; any rational human is. But if we are serious about the question of terror; serious about the question of violence, we have to recgnize that it is a tactical issue. As a matter of fact, tactical isssues are basically moral issues; they have to do with human conseqences. And if we are interested in diminishing the amount of violence in the world; it's at least argueable, in fact sometimes true that a terrorictic act does diminish the amount of violence in the world. Hence, a person who is opposed to violence will not be be opposed to that terrroristc act." - Noam Chomsky

So where do all these split infinitives get us, please?

I think you're all mired in ideology whilst 'Rome burns'!

Right now, I really don't think it matters a toss who you are FOR - we all need to unite AGAINST psychopathy before the door closes on us all. Remember Neimuller?

Label yourselves what you like - it doesn't alter ground reality one iota.

People keep on dying whilst you argue ideals...

...

...

...

ad nauseum...

“I'm intrigued now as to why the coupling of those two words should make someone choke with laughter?”

Because they were said by Danny.

I’ve been on a few demos and I have only ever come across one person who advocated chucking bricks at policemen, and he was a green. But funnily enough the ‘SWPees’ and the SPees convinced him otherwise. Just as well really because the demo was full all sorts of people including disabled people, elderly people and young children.

You saw a Green on a demo - me too, twice. The rallying cry of the Scottish Greens is 'What do we want ? Gradual Change ! When do we want it ? Eventually !' They seriously chant this, a bit tongue in cheek. They are incapable of even throwing brickbats let alone bricks or bats.

There is nothing worse than kids who kick out at the police just to impress their mates. I've aways argued if you are fighting the police then you have already lost, you are fighting the wrong people. It's just the definition of NVDA is so strict as to be ineffectual without mass participation. Some actions do carry risk that wouldn't be classed as NVDA but still deserve a try. Even sit-down protests carry some risk - what is you delay an ambulance getting to someone sick ? It's all about minimising risk and being aware enough what the risks are. Destroying property isn't violence imo. And the targetted assasinations of war-criminals that are too powerful to be aprehended by the police should be applauded by anyway is is truly against violence.

Would you condemned Georg Elser for his 1938 attempt to kill Hitler ? That is 'Pacifism as Pathology'.

they're adjectives you know, not mutually exclusive conditions.

A bit like "English" and "Scottish". Or "Spanish" and "Basque" for that matter. You can even be "Scottish" say and not believe in nations or borders. You can even be "English" like me and have sung "Rogues in a Nation" on more than one occasion in public... or have sung "Viva la Quinta Brigada" in Bilbao and been told off afterwards for being English not Irish (by a twat smoking a pipe)

You can also believe in non-violence without being 100% pacifist: I don't practice violence (much) because I believe violence begets violence and there's already enough of it in the world. But if I had to, or if I really thought it would change things, I would, pragmatically.

Oh by the way: the internet is a waste of time. If you want to win an election or change anything you'd better get out on the streets, talk to your neighbours, post up notices, plant a garden.... THIS MEANS YOU.


 http://www.worldburnsclub.com/poems/translations/a_parcel_of_rogues_in_a_nation.htm

Emigre,

The only version of "Such a Parcel o Rogues In A Nation" I know is sung by Dick Gaughan, a brilliant singer-songrwriter who is very active in promoting the 'Indepence First' campaign. Like my family he comes from Leith - unlike the Proclaimers who come from Fife. This is what he has to say about that song:

"Written about the Treaty Of Union of 1707 which, in theory, abolished the independent Parliaments of Scotland and England and created the Parliament of the United Kingdom. In practice, it merely ended the autonomy of the Scots and reduced us to the status of a province of England. The "parcel of rogues" refered to were the bourgeousie of the Scots Parliament who were, quite literally, bribed into voting for the Treaty, completely abandoning all the principles of The Declaration of Arbroath."

And here he has written an excellent essay on independence, which I won't reprint in full out of respect to him and IM :  http://www.dickgaughan.co.uk/ramblings/happywhat.html

"Doesn't it strike you as somewhat peculiar that such a (one would think) significant occasion - the 300th anniversary of the birth of the state - is passing completely unnoticed and uncommemorated by most of the UK? In fact, that the only people even discussing the 1707 Treaty of Union which created the United Kingdom are those of us in Scotland who want to dismantle it altogether?...If the Union is really such a wonderful thing for all the peoples of these islands, then where are the tercentenary celebrations? Where are the huge fireworks displays and street parties? The gala concerts? The motions in Parliament calling for us to rejoice? After all, every 5th November they expect people all over the UK, including Scotland, to celebrate an event which happened while Scotland and England were still separate nation states, an event which really had little to do with Scotland or Scots, namely the failure by a Welshman to blow up the Parliament of England. So why are most people south of the border not even aware that this year has any significance for them? Well, that's an easy one. Because to most of them, it is utterly without significance of any kind. And to be fair to them, why should it have any significance to them? To Scotland, it was a Union, a marriage of equal partners, a momentous event. To England, it was a politically expedient annexation, a takeover, a minor event. England does not view the 1707 Union as being the birth of the nation state. Therefore there is nothing to commemorate or celebrate. End of discussion. I have no argument with England or with English people. My argument is with The United Kingdom. "

well, the first time I heard it was on my parents' copy of the Steeleye Span (1973) disc Parcel of Rogues, so the significance of the tricentennial wasn't lost on me, for one... Not sure who the singer was, though.

"If you want to win an election or change anything you'd better get out on the streets, talk to your neighbours, post up notices, plant a garden.... THIS MEANS YOU."

Me ? I was up at 'black o'clock' this morning posting notices around town and letters to my neighbours. I have more 'alternative' strategies too. I've been planting more than gardens ( and no MI5, I don't mean bombs except in the spray-can sense of the word ).
Steeleye Span eh ? I'd always dismissed them as old hippies. Now I'm getting on and my hair is getting long I should maybe give them a listen, or get a haircut. I'd also recommend you download some Dick Gaughan. If you can't download, email me a safe address in Spain ( ie not your own) at  movementof2@yahoo.co.uk and I'll post you some CDs. That email address is 'read' by more than me, but I still read it too.

PS I'm not having to travel to Spain now, the girl is coming to me. Just as well, it is 18 degrees here and I am sweating buckets. You should write more on what you are up to in Spain - and challenge the people who are posting under your pseudonymn when they do it.

A violent Green. That's almost as sick/funny as the fact that the BNP have done a poster blitz on Byres Road in Glasgow. About as astute a venture as selling Class War papers outside a Cliff Richard gig or asking Gandhi to direct Black Hawk Down.

Perhaps the two incidents aren't unrelated. If there were ever to be a militant Green faction it would surely blossom in Byres Road.