________________________________________________ A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E http://www.ainfos.ca/ ________________________________________________ Number 359 19th� 25th July, 1999 IN A TIME OF UNIVERSAL DECEIT - TELLING THE TRUTH IS A REVOLUTIONARY ACT - GEORGE ORWELL LIABILITY? The Productivity Commission�s report on gambling in Australia has unearthed a raft of interesting statistics. Australians lose over 11 billion dollars per year gambling. The country has over 180,000 poker machines, 20% of the worlds total. Although poker machines are tied to clubs in New South Wales, the poker machine industry in Victoria benefits a few large corporations. Over 340,000 Australians are described as problem gamblers, their habit affects the lives of over 1.6 million Australians. The interesting aspect of the Productivity Commission�s report was the lack of comment that was made about the liability of the gambling industry for the harm that it causes. Every day cases surface in Courts across the country that are directly linked to people�s gambling addictions. The gambling industry and the various state governments continue to skim off their profits and refuse to accept liability for the personal harm they have caused. Although it�s true that nobody forces a person to gamble, the information that�s provided about gambling makes it seem that everybody is a winner. Odds of success are not displayed and a concentrated effort is made to encourage people to gamble. A republican who serves somebody who is drunk is legally liable, a person who assaults someone is legally liable and a health care professional who is negligent is also legally liable. Why isn�t the gambling industry liable for the misery they cause. Courts should be able to recover money that�s been defrauded by gamblers from the gambling industry. Centrelink should be able to claim money from the gambling industry for the support of dependent of problem gamblers. It wouldn�t take the industry very long to clean up its act if it knew that it was legally liable for the damage it caused. Although nobody is forced to gamble, any damage that is caused to society by the gambling industry should be taken out of the profits they make. It shouldn�t be taken out of the pockets of tax payers. You�d think that a government that is so fond of bringing up the idea of mutual obligation would pass legislation to ensure that the gambling industry, not society was liable for the damage it caused. Unfortunately it seems that the mutual obligation governments are so fond of, only applies to individuals on social security benefits, not multi-billion dollar corporations. MEDIOCRE MAN RETURNS John Howard's recent success in convincing the Australian Democrats to carry the G.S.T. over the parliamentary finishing line has earned him legendary status among Australia's opinion makers. Flushed with his pedestrian success in Australia, the pinnacle of his 25 year parliamentary career, he packed his bags and wandered off to Japan and the United States beating the free trade drum. As he flew out of the country I couldn't help compare him to the school boy who, by winning a race at his school, had won the right to run at the zone finals. It's one thing winning a local race, it's another thing mixing it with the big boys and girls. His first stop over in Japan was an unmitigated disaster. He extolled the virtues of the Australian economic mirage and urged the Japanese government and business sector to clamber onto the free trade wagon train. Flushed with his failure to influence Japanese foreign policy, he embarked on the next leg of his journey. He arrived at the epicentre of the free market heartland in the U.S. of A. at the very moment the United States government introduced tariffs to protect its lamb industry from Australian Imports. Everybody in the world, possibly with the exception of Australia major political parties, knows that the so-called free trade debate is a debate about opening up the rest of the world to United States imports. It's not a debate about so-called "free trade". Howard made a few noises about how Australia was bending over backwards to make the country easy street for foreign capital, hanged around for a few hours waiting for the great fornicator, Bill Clinton, to welcome him to his den and then wandered off back to Australia. A very unimpressive mediocre performance in anybody's eyes. Instead of concentrating on the bigger issues of human rights and independence for East Timor, a subject that should have been embraced by an Australian Minister, our pedestrian friend concentrated on telling all and sundry how Australia and Australians had had their economic pants forcibly yanked down round their ankles (courtesy of the Coalition's policies) and were now waiting to be shafted by whoever had a few bucks to spare. No wonder our little mate was greeted by disdain and derision by both the United States and the Japanese governments. VICTORIAN PUBLIC HEALTH CARE NETWORK IMPLODES One of the first public institutions that was robbed of what little independence it had in Kennett's Victoria was the public hospital sector. Independent hospital boards were sacked and government appointed committees took over their jobs, in 1992, six months after the election of the Kennett regime. Since 1992 the state government, aided by their commonwealth colleagues, has allowed the public health sector to be starved of funds. Work has been contracted out to the private sector and some Victorian public hospitals have been sold to the private sector. The current round of disputes in what's left of the Victorian Public Hospital sector can be laid directly at the feet of the Kennett regime. The Kennett regime's successful corporatisation of the public hospital sector has resulted in the creation of an intermediary between hospital workers and the government. A new managerial elite has been appointed to act as a buffer between the state government and hospital workers and their associations and unions. Unions no longer negotiate with the government of the day, they now negotiate with the area network managerial groups. These groups do not have the power to negotiate any meaningful proposals as budgets are still controlled by the state government. Hence the current impasse in the public health sector network. Kennett and his cronies want the public health sector to breakdown. They have done and continue to do all they can to support their ideological agenda to privatise the public health sector. The difference today is that workers in the public health sector understand they have nothing to lose and are willing to call their bluff. Life in Kennett's land has soured because more people are realising that the changes the Kennett regime is attempting to implement and has implemented are totally ideologically driven and cannot and will not improve the standard of public hospital care. VICTORIAN POLICE GO FERAL!! Over two thousand rank and file police met at Dallas Brooks Hall in Melbourne on Sunday afternoon. They came together to hear what the Victorian Police Association had to say about Neil Comrie, the Chief Police Commissioner of Kennett land. Victorian police are angry at the new managerial style that the government is trying to impose on them. The upper echelons of the Victorian Police Force have become apologists for the Kennett regime. They have become too close to a government that�s keen to impose change on a dispirited police force. Victorian police are disillusioned with a government that�s attempting to introduce individual contracts and out-sourcing in the police force. Under the direction of Neil Comrie the police force has found that their role is shrinking as more and more work is contracted out to the private sector. The number of private security guards has increased by over 300% in the last six years in Victoria. Instead of working arms length from government, Neil Comrie has worked hand in glove with Kennett and his parliamentary disciples. Kennett and Comrie don�t acknowledge or understand that there is any difference between the state and the government of the day. The no confidence motion in Neal Comrie and police management is ultimately a no confidence motion in the Kennett regime. The Victorian Police Association�s battle to maintain its members conditions and protect their autonomy, has potential radical implications for policing in Victoria. The state relies on the thin blue line to maintain order. How long will rank and file police be willing to wade into picket lines and end workplace occupation? Those police that met at Dallas Brooks Hall on Sunday are beginning to realise that their struggle is no different to the struggle of working people in Victoria. A change in police attitudes to workplace struggles can only help the move to create an egalitarian community. As rank and file police became more disillusioned with the government of the day, chances are that they will leave the police bureaucracy and the Kennett regime high and dry and refuse to be used to break up, strikes occupations and demonstrations across the state. As they say, we live in interesting times. DEATH CIRCUS Portable satellite dishes crowd into the laneways that lead up to the Kennedy�s family retreat at Martha�s vineyards. The Kennedy�s are in the news again, thousands of trees are turned into newsprint, the radiowaves are jammed with commentators offering instant analysis of the Kennedy clan. Television screens are filled with pictures of a forlorn white marquee. The world�s media falls over itself in an attempt to bring us up to date with the Kennedy curse. Who was John F. Kennedy Jr? To most Americans he�s still the three year old who saluted his father�s coffin as it was lowered into the ground. Although John F. Kennedy Jr was 38 when his single engine plane crashed into the sea off Martha�s vineyard, killing his wife, sister in law and himself, he will be remembered for what he was, not what he did. You have to ask yourself why so much time and space is devoted to the death of a man who did so little with his life. You have to ask yourself why the Kennedy myth plays such a pivotal role in American culture. Are Americans interested in the media induced frenzy surrounding John F. Kennedy�s death? Is it just another media feeding frenzy or is it much more. So J.F. Kennedy Jr, "his wife and sister in law" died in a light plane crash. People die every day in light plane crashes. Why are those deaths so important? Why is so much newspaper space and radio and television time devoted to somebody because of what he was, not what he did? Some commentators are trying to equate the death of J.F. Kennedy Jr. with the death of Princess Di. Newspaper articles scream about the role of the Kennedy Royal family. I don�t believe that most Americans are that interested in what happened to John F. Kennedy Jr. or the comings and goings of the Kennedy�s. They may be interested in the spectacle, but they haven�t much time for the Kennedy clan. It�s in the American media�s best interests to run with the Kennedy story. The rags to riches story of the Kennedy clan and the personal tragedies that have befallen them are the stuff that myths and legends are made of, no wonder the U.S. media is so interested in the Kennedy story. As long as the media pedals the Kennedy myth, there�s little chance that the United States people will want to examine the short comings of life in God�s own country. ANARCHIST QUESTION & ANSWER Q. Are all anarchists pacifists? A. No, a few are, most aren�t. All the word anarchy means is without rulers, nothing more, nothing less. The problem facing anarchist activists is how do you create a world without rulers. Do you go up to those with power and ask them to give up that power? If you do go up to them and ask them to share that power, do you turn the other cheek when they unleash the dogs of war on you? Although all violent activity is ultimately wasted activity, sometimes people are driven to violence to protect themselves and the gains they have made. Every social gain that has been made in human history has occurred because people have struggled to achieve that gain. How are strikers or demonstrators expected to act if violence is used to break up their activities? How are people who are kept in their place by violence expected to act? Do they continue to turn the other cheek, or do they take steps to defend themselves. We all live in violent societies, some of us have been subjected to individual violence, some of us haven�t. The state holds a monopoly on violence. Do we allow the state to exert that authority every time its power is challenged, or do we dismantle the state so no one person has access to the power that the state apparatus has? Anarchists aren�t so stupid as to believe that you can blow up a social relationship, or you can create egalitarian change through terror. They understand that in the struggle to create radical egalitarian change you may take two steps forward one day while on another day you take three steps backwards. Anarchists know that every time that they have succeeded in creating a radical egalitarian community or their efforts have successfully challenged those in power, that violence has been directed at them and their activities. In such situations most anarchists believe that they need to take steps to protect themselves and the practical gains they have made from the violence that is directed at individuals and groups that attempt to redistribute power and wealth. ACTION BOX - "BRAIN STORMING" If you�re involved in an anarchist group, you soon realise that change can be hard work. It�s very easy in small groups to do things the same way, over and over again because they�ve always been done that way. The pressure to do something, anything can force people in small groups into a strategical rut. After a while participation in the groups activities becomes just another obligation. If you feel the group you�re involved in is getting nowhere and you find yourself working in a group that seems to be going around in circles it�s time to stop and reassess the situation. Major problems always seem to occur when a small group reassesses its activities. Individuals in small groups invest so much time and energy and effort in the group they feel they are under personal attack when an activity they have initiated is under review. A good way to overcome the personal tension that change causes in a small group, is to institute a "Brain Storming" session. Every three or four months a meeting should be held that assesses all current activities and discuss the possibility of new strategies. If these meetings become a regular feature of the groups activities, criticisms of specific projects will not be taken so personally by those who are involved in those projects. A periodic review of a groups activities allows individuals within the group to raise objections to current activities and float new initiatives and projects. Brain storming sessions allows everybody within the group to participate in strategical and practical discussions about the best way to approach particular problems. It provides the space for people to raise questions without directing criticism at a particular individual or a sub-group within the group. Regular brain storming sessions provides that safety valve that individuals in small groups need so that the group survives and prospers. AUSTRALIAN RADICAL AND ANARCHIST HISTORY EARLY FEDERAL TRADE UNIONS Although the six Australian colonies did not federate till the 1st of January 1901, Trade Unions established national organisations from 1875 onwards. Before 1875 similar unions in the different colonies assisted each other financially and practically during strikes. Strikes in one colony were advertised in other colonies to alert interstate workers of "black sites". One of the first Federal Unions formed was the Australian Typographical Association. It was formed in 1880 out of unions that were established in South Australia, Victoria and Tasmania. Within a few years the Typographical Unions in the other colonies joined this Federal Union. The Plasterers, Progressive Society of Carpenters and Joiners and Seamen soon formed Federal Unions. Some of the early unions were extensions of the British Unions and could be described as International Unions. In 1891 the Amalgamated Society of Carpenters and Joiners had branches in Britain, Australia, the United States, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa and Ireland. Different branches of the Union accepted each other members on production of a clearance card. They assisted each other financially during strikes and kept Federal as well as International Black Lists of workers who had scabbed on fellow workers. It�s no exaggeration to say that the push for Federation in Australia and the successful referendum that was held in 1900 to establish Australia, was in part due to the fact that workers who belonged to Federal workplace associations and unions understood the practical benefits of Federation. Those unions and associations who decided to form Federal organisations did so because they realised that the only way to battle capital at the local, national and international level was by forming Federal structures. Source of material for article The Bitter Fight by Jee Harris University of Queensland Press 1970 ISBN 0 7022 0613 Y. BOOK REVIEW INSIDE BLACK AUSTRALIA, An Anthology of Aboriginal Poetry, Edited by Kevin Gilbert 1988, Penguin Books, ISBN 0 14011126 3 Kevin Gilbert died in the early 1990�s of lung cancer. He was born in the small country town of Condobolin in New South Wales in 1933. Orphaned when he was 7 years old, he lived in fringe settlements and Aboriginal reserves until 1957 when he was sentence to life imprisonment for murdering his wife. He was released in 1971 at the very moment a new generation of indigenous Australians had begun taking direct action to highlight the sins of the past and reclaim the future. Inside Black Australia was a labour of love. Between 1978 and 1988 Kevin Glibert was involved in protest activity, wrote extensively, writing the first Aboriginal play, the Cherry Pickers and became involved with an extensive network of radical indigenous activists. In Inside Black Australia he has brought together forty indigenous poets ranging from household names Oodgeroo Noonuccal (Kath Walker), Ernie Dingo, Jack Davies to indigenous poets who are well known in their communities but unrecognised in the wider community. After a lively introduction written by Kevin Gilbert, the poets spring to life. Each individual body of poetry is preceded by a synopsis of the poets life. Collectively the poems open up a window on Australia�s shunned and forgotten people. They explore the range of human emotions, plunge the reader into a sea of despair and then drag them to the surface to look at the moon and the stars. The lives of these forty indigenous poets range from that of Robert Walker, an Aboriginal man who died in Fremantle prison in 1985 at the age of 25, probably as a consequence of a severe beating, at the hands of prison staff, to the Lajamanu Poets, Penny Rose Napalijarri, Rhonda Samuel Napurrurla, Irene James Napurruria, Julie Watson Nungarrayi, Valerie Patterson Napanangka and Jennie Hargraces Nampijinpa, women from Lajamanu in the Northern Territory. Although much indigenous literature has been published since 1988, Inside Black Australia is still one of the more raw and striking poetry anthologies produced in this country. It�s well worth a few hours of anybodies time. Wanna Be White My man took off yesterday with a waagin* He left me and the kids To be something in this world said he sick of being Black, poor and laughed at Said he wanted to be white Have better clothes, a flash car and eat fancy He said me and the kids Would give him a bad name Because we are black too So he left with a waagin* *Waagin: East Coast word for �white woman� Derived from �white gin�. Charmain Papertalk-Green. PERSONAL OBSERVATION Ambulance in the street, lights flashing, no sirens, parked outside the old people�s house. They were in their eighties, lived in the same house for decades. They walked everywhere, occasionally you�d see them struggle onto a bus. She was bent double, thin as a rake, wild look in her eyes. Her mind floated between the past and the present. As the years rolled on it became trapped in the past. She knew which route to take to the shop, but didn�t know what she wanted and how to get back home. Occasionally she�d sneak out of her little home oblivious of the cars and anyone else, head down, determined to keep on walking until she reached her destination. A few minutes later he�d appear from the side of the house, a lanky wisp of a man, lines etched on his face, his body stuffed into a crumpled shirt and pants, his feet swimming in shoes that were far too big for him. He scanned the street, turned left and began the pilgrimage to find her. Every day they left the house two to three times they came back with a plastic bag of groceries, normally they came back empty handed. He walked with her until she was exhausted and then gently steered her home. Apart from an old man in a battered old car nobody else visited them. Although they were intensely private people, who kept to themselves the neighbours kept an eye on them. They came to the yearly Christmas party at the end of the street. She didn�t remember anybody, he kept by her side and spoke to whoever spoke to him. Everyone knew they were living on borrowed time, age had robbed them of their vitality, destroyed their bodies and was now feeding on what was left of their brains. The ambulance men came out of the house, pushing a stretcher, she followed it to the doors of the ambulance His feet protruded from one end of the stretcher, his head lolled to one side of the other end. The ambulance speed off, she returned inside. The old man in the battered car came that afternoon, he took her away, since then a solitary light has shone in the bedroom window. Then days later the old man in the battered car came round, we talked. He was her brother, she didn�t recognise him any more, she was in a nursing home, her husband lay in a public hospital bed. He�d suffered a stroke, was expected to survive, but wouldn�t walk again. If he was lucky he�d possibly join his wife in the same nursing home. They couldn�t come home, the love story had reached its climax. They had no children or other relatives, he�d come from Canada when he was five or six. They had no friends they had drifted away as senile dementia staked its claim. They�d lived together in the same house for over sixty years, until the ravages of the ageing process finally drove them apart. STOP PRESS - MERCENARY KING OF THE COMMERCIAL AIRWAYS Payola was the biggest scandal of commercial radio in the 1950�s. You paid the disc jockey for privilege of having your record aired and before you knew it wham bang thank you ma�am you were a star. Commercial radio hacks across the country have been raking in the dough while they mouth off commercial radio and television for decades. the media�s strength lies in its ability to set the agenda. Editorial groups across the nation decide what is news and what isn�t news. Stories that don�t fit their world view just don�t appear. John Laws and Alan Jones�s sins are that they have entered into secret agreements with commercial sponsors to massage the news to fit their sponsors view of the world. Those people who listen to Laws and Jones, have for years innocently believed that what they were hearing were the heart felt opinions of the media gurus. Laws has run into his current difficulties because of the monumental greed of the man and the organisations that live off the Laws product. Not content with multi million dollar retainer from 2UE, not content with lucrative agreements with legitimate sponsers, he had to go that one step further and cheat on his listeners and the commercial radio station he worked for. What�s disgusting about this whole business, is not that Laws has been exposed as a verbal mercenary whose opinions can be bought by the highest bidder, but that this fiasco has been going on for decades. Good second rung corporate citizens like the banks and the car manufacturing sector have been lining up to fill the pockets of these verbal mercenaries. While Laws tries to save what little credibility he has left, the major players in the corporate game in Australia the Murdoch�s, Packers and Stokes continue to beam, broadcast and publish informal that reinforces their power and the status quo. Laws ultimate crime is not that he is an airwaves mercenary his ultimate crime is that has not been able to accumulate the capital to buy and run his own media empire. If he had that power, I can guarantee you that nobody would be asking awkward questions about his clandestine commercial arrangements. JOSEPH TOSCANO (Libertarian Workers for a Self-Managed Society). ANARCHIST PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED THIS WEEK � UMANITA NOVA 79th year 4th&18th Apr�99, C.So Palermo 46, 10152 Torino, Italy. Tel/Fax (011) 857850, email [EMAIL PROTECTED] ANARCHIST PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED THIS WEEK � THE RADICAL ALTERNATIVE, Published by the Community Institute of Queensland, PO Box 692, Roma St Post Office, Brisbane 4003, Australia. � NO COMPROMISE, Animal Rights America, PO Box 5236, Old Bridge N.J. USA. DEBT ELIMINATION APPEAL � UP IT GOES AGAIN!!! Our debt stands at $1976.00. We owe 3CR Community Radio Station $1785.00. �We need to clear this debt by the end of July 1999, otherwise we will be forced to place a number of campaigns for 1999 on hold. One way you can help is by paying in ADVANCE for copies of the Anarchist Age Weekly Review. We ask NET readers of the A.A.W.R. to especially consider sending us a donation. Currently subscribers to the A.A.W.R. & the A.A.M.R are subsidizing net users. DEBT 21.7.99 - $1976.00 Please send STAMPS, MONEY ORDERS OR CHEQUES to L.W.S.S. PO BOX 20, Parkville 3052, Melbourne, Australia. Overseas Donors please note - please have cheques at your end made out in Australian dollars as it costs us ten dollars to convert one overseas cheques to Australian dollars. COMMUNITY RADIO SATELLITE The Anarchist World This Week will be broadcasting live on the Community Radio Satellite, 10am to 11.00am every Wednesday morning from the 23rd of June. Can you tune into a community Radio Station? If you can ask your local community Radio Station to broadcast Anarchist World This Week live at 10am every Wednesday morning or later on in the week. Contact them today to arrange to hear an Anarchist voice on the airwaves in your part of Australia. Send us 4x45 cent stamps for a new Anarchist World This Week Poster. VOTE INFORMAL TODAY DIRECT DEMOCRACY TOMORROW MONTHLY GET TOGETHER AT THE PINK PALACE 56-58 EASTMENT ST, NORTHCOTE MELBOURNE Thursday 29th July, 1999 8.00pm All Welcome Bring along some food drinks and stamps (45c) to the monthly get together. A) Anarchism towards the 21st century B) Towards an anarchist society 1999 handbook Libertarian Workers for a Self-Managed Society Position & Activities 1999. Send $4.00 of stamps to L.W.S.S. PO Box 20 Parkville 3052 Melbourne Australia and we will post out both booklets to you. URGENT Want to be part of an anarchist community? Interested in Anarchism? Want to live a few kilometres from Melbourne�s G.P.O. in the heart of Brunswick? Want to help Barricade Books Info shop pay the rent? THEN Think about moving into 115 Sydney Rd, Brunswick Melbourne, 2 rooms available NOW. Big room $80.00pw (utilities $15.00pw), Small room $60.00pw (utilities $15.00pw) Call (03) 9387 6646 for further information. ANARCHIST MEDIA INSTITUTE OBSCENITY OF THE WEEK Has been awarded to the mercenary king of the commercial airways � John Laws. BARRICADE LIBRARY 115 Sydney Rd, Brunswick 3056 Melbourne Tel (03) 9387-6646 The Library contains 2000 books on a wide range of subjects. In addition there are over 500 titles of anarchist and radical zines in English. The library also has an impressive collection of books and newspapers in Spanish, Italian, Greek, Turkish as well as Asian, Latin American and other European languages. Become a member of the Barricade Library � Cost $30.00 (membership fee will be refunded when you cancel your library membership) and borrow up to three books at a time (one only if the book costs more than $30.00) Politically manipulated and scorned? Sick of being a peripheral player every time a Federal election comes around, then join:- VOTE INFORMAL TODAY, DIRECT DEMOCRACY TOMORROW, a "political party" that is putting the boot into the Australian Parliamentary Process. Send a stamp self-addressed envelope to VOTE INFORMAL TODAY DIRECT DEMOCRACY TOMORROW PO Box 20, Parkville. 3052. Melbourne. Australia Telephone (03) 9828 2856 (24 hour answering service). We will send information about how to join this unique 21st century Australian phenomena. DON�T PUT IT OFF JOIN THE PUSH FOR CHANGE NOW If You Like What You Have Read, Photocopy This Publication and Leave It In Doctors, Dentists, Vets Waiting Rooms and In Railway Stations, Bus Stops, Libraries and Restaurants Etc. The articles in the Anarchist Age Weekly Review express the opinion of individuals within the Libertarian Workers for a Self-Managed Society/Anarchist Media Institute. They do not necessarily reflect the opinions of The Libertarian Workers for a Self-Managed Society/Anarchist Media Institute. P U B L I C A T I O N S Anarchist Age Weekly Review - 4 pages of Anarchist commentary on Local, National and International events. $50.00 for 50 issues $10.00 for 10 issues Anarchist Age Monthly Review � (Currently a bi-monthyl) Issue 87 out July 1999 $48.00 wage earners - 12 issues $30.00 non wage earners - 12 issues Make out cheques or money orders to: Libertarian Workers, PO Box 20, Parkville, 3052 Victoria Aust. All material in the Anarchist Age Weekly Review can be used by anarchists, anarchist collectives and non-profit organisations as long as the source of the material is mentioned in the article. The Anarchist Age Weekly Review reserves all rights as far as commercial publications are concerned. THERE ARE MORE STARS IN THE UNIVERSE THAN THERE ARE GRAINS OF SAND ON EARTH ******** The A-Infos News Service ******** COMMANDS: [EMAIL PROTECTED] REPLIES: [EMAIL PROTECTED] HELP: [EMAIL PROTECTED] WWW: http://www.ainfos.ca/ INFO: http://www.ainfos.ca/org
