Mood: don't ask
Now Playing: David Helfgott-Rachmaninov, Tracey Chapman, Miles Davis, Ani, David Rovics
hey ppl
I'm at home- pretty tired
-photocopied last night till 230am
-am doing a philosophy take home exam- on empiricism
-just had an argument with emilie and others about The Left and dogmatic language and slogans- them taking it personally, shouting about it, saying I'm conservative just because I question the way we do things, I ended up crying about it..
Emilie likes to mythologise the success of Keep Left saying it's been great this year- well if it's been great, how come the new people slowly drifted away and even I dragged my feet coming- I just get so pissed off at how people just are not humble enough to critically examine how they use power in that space.
Found lots of great articles on the SMH website for once...(usually it's all boring)
Study airs danger of pollution to young lungs
Labor robs the poor to pay the middle
Bombing a consequence of policy, says Andrew Wilkie
Just posted a comment on Melb Indymedia about terrorism and violence:
The World Changed by Anne Sunday September 12, 2004 at 07:42 PM anne@student.usyd.edu.au
it's interesting to see the kind of language ppl use to talk about spectacular events such as terrorist attacks.
"The World changed on this day or that day" (I know Simon probably said this ironically). Such a depiction of sudden change allows governments to justify each step away from ethical policies.
There is latent violence in the world: cycles of violence that we live day in day out- fuelled by the structural injustices of the unfair way our economic system operates, but also by every decision we make.
Physical violence such as terrorist attacks are where a person lets the violence they feel bubble to the surface. It is a futile exercise in nihilism.
It provides a basis for the net amount of violence in the world to grow exponentially, because the constructed 'other' (that justifies warfare) takes on a real form: the bogeyman becomes a 'true' figure on the global media stage.
We each have the power to refuse to perpetuate cycles of violence- it takes a lot of moral courage- and is one valid form of transformative activism- that I reckon has potential in practices of consciousness-raising.