hi people...

Last night and yesterday arvo, I went to see Judy Rebick, a Canadian organiser, socialist feminist and media personality.

The first workshop was about unions and community organising. The second was about feminism in the neoliberal age.

They both gave me quite a few insights into many things.

After english (Rhetoric and Discourse- Metaphor) today, I was speaking to one of my classmates about systems theory, chaos and Jean Baudrillard. This kind of stuff fascinates me. So I searched on the web and found this archive of Jean's work.

Also, the 'networks' chapter of "We are Everywhere' is fascinating in this regard.

(I randomly found another site about Argentina here .)

hi peoples
I am in the src dungeon, at 630pm, listening to the fans go round and feeling the ever-familiar density and heat of the air.

I'm hoping that this blog will be a bridge between the thoughts that crystallise and half-form in my mind and the everyday life of student environmental and social justice activism and study at uni: generally "doing stuff" to breathe life into the world we live in.

I was just down at the Fisher Library copying an awesome pamphet I got at Jura Books

It's called "Cosmic Dialectics"- Joseph Dietgzen's Libertarian Philosophy- By L.Gambone 1996 and it challenges the binary that many on the left have between socialism (or radical utopias) and spirituality (particularly an idea of 'God' ).
Dietgzen was a colleague of Marx and was a highly original thinker. He saw "God" as the ultimate resolution of the dialectic- a synthesis of opposites (This summary has hardly done justice to it- I'm also interpreting it through my prism of thought) I did a Government "Spirituality and Politics" essay about this kind of thing that I should post here. If you'd like a cop of either, then email me on anneenna at graffiti.net.

When I left the library, I ran into Gilbert and Anwyn (Sydney Uni activists from a few years ago) and kind of talked a lot about whether student activism is effective, and how the atmosphere at the moment grinds me down like sandpaper.

There's an oft-read article on activism, "Give Up Activism" that gives a bit of insight into this, but at sydney uni it's a lot to do with factions - political parties squeeze a lot out of what could otherwise be a process of awakening and personal/community development.

I did a google search on Situationism and activism and came up with these links:
a list
and
a story about one US collective's challenging of the protest spectacle. I am forever interested in the situationists and their analysis of our spectacle society.

On the issue of uni politics, the Union Board Elections are on tomorrow. I just hope that Unity (Labor Right) don't scoop the pool, as they have been extremely corrupt at other unis, for example Melbourne Uni.

I saw some hopeful signs about Melbourne Uni Left re-awakening on Melbourne Indymedia. In their union elections (the equivalent of a joint src/union board for us), the Ignite and the Activate campaigns did really well.

And finally, Mike, (who happened to be one of the people on the Melbourne Uni Activate ticket) sent me this awesome article about corporations via the Tradewatch list. Apparently there's a movie coming out soon.

bye.
xx Anne
Hopefully I'll be getting internet at home soon.