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Schnews- the most interesting social change newsletter I know of...

This week's SchNEWS: Friday 18th March 2005, Issue 489

An article about the connection between tree removal and rainfall reduction:Drought linked to fewer trees

From Open Democracy: What the hell is "civil society"?, Globalising freedom, The trouble for Muslims, and non-Muslims, Dyab Abou Jahjah distinguishes Arab resistance from Muslim victimhood, in his argument on US terror.

Hands off our code!

There are 30,000 European patents on computer code. So far, most are not in force. But if the EU gives in, says Becky Hogge, our common intellectual assets will be privatised. If you don't understand what is happening, read this. Wake up, this is important (1,800 words)

Hey my brother james sent me this:

To the citizens of the United States of America,

In the light of your failure to elect a suitable President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective today.... -----------------------------

DODGE ALERT!!! VSU/ASOL transcript of John Laws/ Brendan Nelson interview

Transcript of John Laws Programme Radio 2UE Interview VSU

From Anna Rose...

Hi all student (and non student) environment activists

This is a very important message. Please read and talk about the issue in your environment collectives and with your friends.

You have probably seen in the media today that the Howard government tabled Voluntary student Unionism (VSU) legislation to the House of Representatives today. We at the National Union of Students found out about this last night and hence had a crazy insane night of making leaflets and posters followed by an intense day publicing a snap action we are holding tomorrow where students from lots of different campuses in NSW are marching to John Howard's office in Sydney. So far the issue has received a lot of national and even international media attention. We need to keep it on the public agenda and fight as hard as we can to save our student organisations...

Global Trade Watch E-Newsletter #29 - March 17, 2005

Wolfowitz to Head World Bank: Critics Amazed. -50 years is enough

THE WEEKLY SPIN, March 16, 2005 -sponsored by the nonprofit Center for Media and Democracy

THIS WEEK'S NEWS: == SPIN OF THE DAY ==

1. Investing in "Ethical" Uranium 2. Gloom in the Ranks of PR 3. Not So "Firewall," After All 4. Where the Buffalo Shills Roam 5. Video News Responses 6. State of the Fourth Estate 7. Ten Minutes from Normal Relations 8. Fake News on the BBC 9. The New York Times Catches on to VNRs 10. Pro-Cedar, Anti-Syria 11. Still in the Movie Business 12. McPositioning 13. Counting Votes First, Dead Later 14. The Reverse British Invasion

Got this from Greenbiz and thought it might be useful for campus action. Cameron

Campus Climate Action Toolkit Source: Clean Air - Cool Planet

Looking for ways to make your college campus more climate-friendly? This online package offers software, information and instructions, links, and case studies to help colleges and universities slash emissions while saving much-needed cash.

Dear friends and colleagues

I am writing to let you know that the final report of the Youth and Sustainable Consumption project I have spoken to you about or that you were involved in has now been publicly released.

For more background information, go here: . The final report can be downloaded in various formats from the here. Hi Folks, (warning + how to leave below)

(i just received one of these from a friend)

You are highly likely to receive an invitation such as the following shortly, because the service gets people to enter their YAHOO, HOTMAIL, MSN OR GMAIL password and then sends (personalised) messages to _everyone_ in their address book:

"XXXX has invited you to join XXXX's mobile friends' network.

Simply click the link below to confirm your relationship with XXXX.

http://www.sms.ac/.....etc... "

Social software - including SMS groups - has great potential, but THIS ONE IS NASTY. One person wrote: "First, SMS.ac had all of my friends spam the hell out of me with their scam-like service (most of whom apologized immediately afterwards). Now they're sending cease and desist letters to friends who apologized publicly, calling this defamatory".

How to leave SMS.ac: (If you have registered)

Option 1: (best) Sign in (http://www.sms.ac/login.asp) click on "myAccount". Choose "Edit" in the Mobile Phone Information box, then you will be able to edit or remove your mobile number.

Option 2: http://www.sms.ac/MobilecommandHelp/h2_cancel.htm (Click on "" - follow instructions.)

UPDATES ON DEVELOPMENTS IN THE PACIFIC

Dr Jane Kelsey, Action, Research and Education Network of Aotearoa
(ARENA/NZ), to the International Coordinating Network WTO Preparatory
Meeting, Hong Kong, February 2005

The South Pacific may seem a strange starting point for an input on the
Hong Kong ministerial conference in December. It is about as far away from
Geneva as you can get. But its situation shows how the WTO reaches the
most remote parts of the world, including countries that are not and never
will be WTO members.

NIKEWATCH NEWS - March 2005

Challenging Sports Brands to Respect Workers' Rights

---------------------------------------------------------

This issue features debate between Nike and Oxfam Community Aid
Abroad regarding the dismissal of union members at MSP Sportswear in Thailand. Please follow the link and take action on this case.
There's also a profile of the Clean Clothes Campaign - part of our
aim of providing you with more info on the global movement for labour rights.

*********************************************************************

1. Will Nike do the right thing at MSP Sportswear, Thailand?
2. Update on Indonesian FILA supplier - PT Tae Hwa
3. Prove that consumers care, send us your receipts
4. Three Years is Enough! Sri Lankan workers want their jobs back
5. For Sydney readers: Fabric of Society - Fair Wear dinner, 31 March
6. Big win for workers' rights in USA - Taco Bell boycott over!
7. International Campaign Profile: The Clean Clothes Campaign

*********************************************************************

1.

Oxfam Community Aid Abroad recently wrote to Nike in support of three union leaders dismissed for forming a union at MSP Sportswear in Thailand. Nike's initial response was inadequate and they failed to take responsibility for the implementation of their own code. For more information on MSP Sportswear and to take action

********************************************************************

6. Big win for workers' rights in USA - Taco Bell boycott over!

On 8 March Taco Bell finally responded to a four-year worker and
consumer campaign by signing an agreement with the Coalition of
Immokalee Workers for a 'Penny a Pound' from Taco Bell directly to
agricultural workers' producing tomatoes for Taco Bell. It is
striking evidence that together, workers and other citizens can
pressure big companies to respect workers basic rights. Oxfam was one of many organisations that supported the campaign.

*********************************************************************

The NIKEWATCH-NEWS mailing list

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

The Porto Alegre Manifesto

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

Steve Forbes says the world?s business leaders can?t wait to come to
Sydney later this year.

?Sydney is getting a world reputation for being a centre of business
and for being cosmopolitan,? said the president and chief executive of US magazine Forbes.

?People began to look at Australia in a new way after the Olympics.
Everyone wants to come to Australia.?

Mr Forbes, who has twice nominated to be the US Republican Party?s
presidential candidate, is in Australia to promote the coming Forbes
Global CEO conference, which will bring together about 400 chief
executives.

International speakers at the fifth annual event, to be held in Sydney
between August 30 and September 1, include former New York mayor
Rudolph Gmliani, PriceWaterhouseCoopers global chief executive Samuel
DiPiazza, Lloyds TSB Group chairman Maarten van den Bere and Nobel
Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz.

The NSW government, one of the host sponsors, said the conference
should inject about $5 million into the state?s economy.

?This is a tremendous opportunity to showcase Australia?s strong and
vibrant economy as well as the great access we have into Asia,? said
NSW Premier Bob Carr.

Local speakers include Prime Minister John Howard, Visy Indus- tries
chairman Richard Pratt, Busi- ness Council of Australia president Hugh
Morgan and Macquarie Bank executive director Warwick Smith

The three-day conference at the Sydney Opera House is expected to
stimulate the luxury accommodation sector and also provide good
business for Sydney airport, given, the number of corporate and
private jets expected to arrive.

Mr Forbes said he no longer held serious political ambitions but he
would continue to lobby for the introduction of a flat income tax
structure in the US. ?I won?t be running [for nominated nation to be
the Republican Party?s presidential candidate],? he said. ?But I will
be an agitator - backing candidates, backing causessuch as tax reform.
?It seems that the former communist countries are getting [a flat
tax].A number in eastern and central Europe have adopted it.?

-----------------------------------------------

The Anarchist Age Weekly review

Number 634

14th March-20th March 2005

NO GLOBALISATION WITHOUT DIRECT DEMOCRACY-ANARCHIST MEDIA INSTITUTE
'WE SWEAR BY THE SOUTHERN CROSS TO STAND TRULY BY EACH OTHER AND FIGHT TO
DEFEND OUR RIGHTS AND LIBERTIES'-EUREKA REBELLION OATH 1854

IT'S ALL OVER RED ROVER
The Coalition's call for a free trade agreement with China and its recent
free trade agreements with the US, Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia, mark
the beginning of the end of the manufacturing and agricultural sector in
Australia. Since Federation, 'free trade' and 'protectionism' have
dominated the economic debate. It's only in the past 2 decades that both
major political parties have embraced 'free trade' as Australia's economic
destiny.

Media Release: VSU

VSU LEGISLATION MAKES NO ECONOMIC SENSE FOR UNIVERSITIES

March 16, 2005

Legislation to abolish universal membership of student organisations, introduced by the Government into the Federal Parliament today, makes no economic sense for universities and will severely undermine their efforts to compete in the multi-billion dollar international student market.

?This legislation is a disaster for universities and if implemented will make it extremely difficult for many of them to provide the type of essential services that domestic and overseas students expect as part of studying at a modern university,? said Dr Carolyn Allport, NTEU President.

?Education Minister Brendan Nelson?s justification for the Bill in terms of the principles of ?fairness? and ?freedom of association? is a complete misrepresentation of what is at stake if this legislation is implemented.?

?The vast majority of universities already have some form of clause that allows students to opt-out of membership of their student organisation upon enrolment. What this legislation questions is whether universities should be able to charge students a fee towards the cost of providing a range of services, many of which are administered by student-controlled organisations.?

?The Government obviously thinks this should not be the case and is proposing to severely penalise any institution that tries to bypass the ban by charging their own fee to fund any facility or service that is not narrowly defined as relating to the academic nature of the student?s course of study.?

?Quite apart from the broader impact that this will have on campus culture and the fact that it represents yet another bureaucratic intrusion by the Government into affairs of universities, the legislation displays total ignorance about how a modern university operates and what constitutes an academic-related service,? said Dr Allport.

?For example, I would have thought that a single mother with two children who goes back to university to study would consider childcare services, which are often provided cheaply by student organisations, as very much related to her ability to progress academically.?

?Similarly, I imagine that an overseas student would consider access to cheap computer facilities or assistance from the student organisation to represent them in a dispute over marking, as essential academic services.?

?Universities face limited choices if they cannot charge a fee for these services,? said Dr Allport. ?They will either have to fund them from their own scarce resources, farm them out to private providers who provide them on a full cost commercial bases, or not provide them at all.?

?This legislation will severely damage the academic and broader cultural product offered by universities and severely undermine their ability to compete in the multi-billion international student market, where access to services provided by institutions is a major selling point for Australian universities.?

For information and comment

Andrew Nette, NTEU Policy and Research Coordinator: (03) 9254 1910
Emma Cull, NTEU Policy and Research Officer: (03) 9254 1910

----------------

The Australian Federal Government wants to scrap student organisations and unions. The Federal Government is today introducing anti student legislation which will mean that membership of student organisations is no longer automatically universal. Commonly known as Voluntary Student Unionism, this legislation is an attempt to silence students and reduce our rights.

There are many articles in the Australian media today about this proposed legislation. For example go to the Sydney Morning Herald

http://www.smh.com.au

All undergraduate students are currently members of the Student?s Representative Council through universal unionism. The Student?s Representative Council represents all undergraduate students at the University of Sydney and protects student rights through campaigns on issues affecting students, such as fee increases, course cuts and the cost of readers. SRC staff are available to all students to provide confidential and professional advice and advocacy on academic, legal and welfare matters such as Centrelink.

Voluntary student unionism is an attack on student rights and the organisations who fight to protect them. Hundreds of jobs are also under attack with staff of student organisations uncertain about their futures.

Support the rights of students, oppose the government?s legislation.

Vote ?no? in the readers poll, write to your paper and politicians, participate in talk back radio and encourage your union to support the National Union of Students (NUS) and National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) in the fight to oppose voluntary student unionism.

--
Charlotte Long
Welfare Research Officer
Students? Representative Council
University of Sydney

PO Box 794
NSW 2007

Telephone +61 2 9660 5222
Facsimile +61 2 9660 4260

The SRC gives students a voice - don?t let the Government silence them. Say NO to Voluntary Student Unionism.

http://www.src.usyd.edu.au

FRIDAY:

This is the third day of Oweek. I still haven't collected all my thoughts on SE Asia to write in this blog or livejournal. I have been thinking about so many things- now that I'm staying near the beach -and have "time" (not much time actually) to think... :

I find it very difficult to write it all down- I think it's my personality type. Whilst I'm quite good at writing, I believe I work best by verbalising ideas rather than writing them down- To write down ideas would seem to domesticate them: to use vocabulary is to make a dynamic existence static: it is to approximate the infinite, which seems like something too earthly to do for someone with her head in the clouds. - so I'll post some random stuff: :

An interesting article, that confirms what we already know about water cycles and the interconnectedness of everything: :

:

Fewer trees, less rain: study uncovers deforestation equation :

By Richard Macey March 4, 2005 :

Australian scientists say they have found proof that cutting down forests reduces rainfall. :

The finding, independent of previous anecdotal evidence and computer modelling, uses physics and chemistry to show how the climate changes when forests are lost. :

Ann Henderson-Sellers, director of environment at the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, at Lucas Heights, and Dr Kendal McGuffie, from the University of Technology, Sydney, made the discovery by analysing variations in the molecular structure of rain along the Amazon River. :

Not all water, Professor Henderson-Sellers said, was made from the recipe of two atoms of "common" hydrogen and one of 'regular' oxygen. :

About one in every 500 water molecules had its second hydrogen atom replaced by a heavier version called deuterium. And one in every 6500 molecules included a heavy version of the oxygen atom. :

Knowing the ratio allowed scientists to trace the Amazon's water as it flowed into the Atlantic, evaporated, blew back inland with the trade winds to fall again as rain, and finally returned to the river. :

'It's as if the water was tagged,' she said. :

While the heavier water molecules were slower to evaporate from rivers and groundwater, they were readily given off by the leaves of plants and trees, through transpiration. :

'Transpiration pumps these heavy guys back into the atmosphere.' :

But the study showed that since the 1970s the ratio of the heavy molecules found in rain over the Amazon and the Andes had declined significantly. :

The only possible explanation was that they were no longer being returned to the atmosphere to fall again as rain because the vegetation was disappearing. 'With many trees now gone and the forest degraded, the moisture that reaches the Andes has clearly lost the heavy isotopes that used to be recycled so effectively,' Professor Henderson-Sellers said. :

Tom Lyons, professor of environmental sciences at Perth's Murdoch University, said there was now 'certainly very strong evidence that changes in surface conditions have an impact on the climate. In some parts of the world the impact is very marked'. The Amazon research 'helps us understand the mechanism'. :

Professor Henderson-Sellers said the average water molecule fell as rain and re-evaporated fives times during its journey from the tropical Atlantic to the river's starting point in the Andes mountains. Forests played a vital role in keeping the heavy molecules, and their far more common relatives, moving through the water cycle. :

'People will tell you that when you remove the forests it rains less,' she said, adding, however, such anecdotal evidence, and even computer modelling, did not convince everyone. :

'This is the first demonstration that deforestation has an observable impact on rainfall.' :

www.smh.com.au/news/Environment/Fewer-trees-less-rain-the-de...

Now Playing: Nina Simone: Young, Gifted and Black, and Bjork

from melbourne indymedia:

Oh Mum, won't you buy me a new mobile phone? My friends all have Nokia's, I feel so alone. Nobody to text me, no help from my friends, So, Mum, won't you buy me a brand new Seimens?

Oh Dad, won't you buy me a new NEC? Dialling For Dollars is trying to find me. I'll wait for delivery each day until three, So Dad, won't you buy me a new NEC?

Oh Mum, won't you buy me a brand new hands free? I'm counting on you, Mum, just do it for me. Prove that you love me with a Handspring Treo, Oh Mum, won't you buy me a six double o?

Oh Dad, won't you buy me a glittery pooh mobile? My friends all have Samsungs, can't wait for a while, We sit with each other but stare at our text, United by mobiles, what will happen next?

So I'm currently in melbourne and still on the internet (not really appreciating the amazing place i'm in) Oh well. I'm staying with nice people so at least some of the time i'm appreciating them.

I was browsing wikipedia and came up with several interesting articles-

-on Syndicalism

-on Susan Sontag, who Jane raves about- she learnt about her at art school. I then found a fascinating article Sontag wrote in 1964 about Camp and its aesthetics, history etc.

Finally, some media:

Letters in the SMH:

on the greens

and an article on privatising cityrail, which has ALWAYS in my opinion been the state govt's motive... they now have a pattern of running down services to crisis point, and then wheeling in privatisation as the 'solution'.

Finally, alternative media:

on Darwin Indymedia, an article about the railway to Darwin being used (as people have been saying for a while) for uranium export.

And also, alternative radio Australia and their analysis of the GUNNS SLAPP against green groups

and I was also looking at Michael Mobbs' low cost sustainable house designing... although you cant see the plans.

will be home tomorrow.

list of links
Now Playing: Bar Kokhba (Masada Chamber Ensemble)
well as part of a very long 'to do' list, I need to go through pages and pages of LINKS that I have collected over the last few weeks.

Grain.org:World Food Day: Iraqi Farmers aren't celebrating

Adele Horin: Perhaps gung ho wilderness trips are not so reformatory

Arundhati Roy THe new Corporate Liberation Theology

Book review: The Blood Bankers- a critique of global economics

Mario Savio
Mood:  caffeinated
Now Playing: Joni Mitchell
At the moment, at the University of Berkeley, California, there is a 40th Anniversary commemoration of the Free Speech Movement.

I've just been browsing the speeches of Mario Savio, and have been very interested.

1. A Speech that foreshadows the "End of History" rhetoric of Fukuyama, and criticises it as the consciousness of the Bureaucracy.

2. His famous speech of the machine

3. A recent (1994) talk about his Catholicism and how that influenced his ideology.

4. Here is the index.

xx

A day spent surfing the waves of websites on the web.
Mood:  hungry

Firstly, I found some interesting US websites: When searching Google for the words 'Binary, Politics, Left, Right" I discovered many things, including a communique from the Buffalo Revolutionary Marxist Collective, in a debate with a lecturer; an article critiquing the dynamics of coalitions, some awesometranslations of German progressive texts,

I found Margo Kingston's webdiary on the election,- This linked to a funny UK article about how they elected a monkey mascot as mayor in one local govt election. On indymedia, I found an ABC transcript of an expose of George Pell and Tony Abbott's collaboration to undermine Labor.

I looked on the website of the Medical Journal of Australia, and looked at some of their articles on social and environmental health. There was a very interesting retrospective by Simon Chapman, a founder of BUGAUP. Also was a story by a Greenpeace medic who was recently arrested and incarcerated in a Swedish prison. Also, an article by Alex Wodak about a thwarted heroin trial in Canberra.

I alsoConcurred strongly with Ruth Ostrow: she burst into tears at the height of her career when asked "What drives you to work 16 hour days"? (I came across this article whilst searching for her on Google, because she was quoted in the Herald saying that she was a closet Anarchist, and that's why she disagreed with morals- I disagreed with her that there is a necessary connection between the two beliefs)

Marvelling at Lyn Carson's work on Deliberative Democracy, her conversation with George Monbiot, her article on the new role of activists (PDF). I also discovered the work of her former supervisor, and now co-writer, Brian Martin (and supervisor to some of my friends)

What a way to spend a public holiday....

A.

Binary Investigation
Mood:  a-ok
Now Playing: nothing
A major question that I would like to investigate/ address over the next few weeks/ months / years is

"Does the nature of human organisation naturally tend towards binaries, -such as good/evil, left/right, regression/progress-, or is that just a construction of Western society?"

This was motivated by my recent experience of student elections, (this question always comes up). I always have a nagging belief that binary ways of thinking are innately regressive and limiting to the human imagination, and our conceptions of what is possible. In addition, it leads to an 'us and them' mentality.

As a person who resents the limitations of the labels 'left and right', I am interested to discover whether or not they are unique to our era or not.

Some areas of investigation could involve

1. historicism- (the idea that history is an inevitable movement towards progress) and its many critics.

2. dialectics- (the analysis of the creative interaction of opposites in driving history and innovation forwards)

3. The two-party political system and its history

4. The history of the political terms 'left and right' and whether or not their tendencies predated the labels (coined after the French Revolution). To what extent is "left" and "right" historically related to the development of Capitalism?

5. An analysis of Western epistemology (what is seen to constitute knowledge) and its various forms- logic, empiricism (especially the scientific method) - contrasting this with the epistemology of indigenous forms of knowledge and other more circular/lateral ways of thinking.

6. An analysis of 'us and them' thinking and whether or not its prevalence is grounded in political situations of perceived or real threat from some unknown 'Other'.

7. An analysis of binary conceptualisations in the Bible and Hebrew texts.

8. An analysis of paradox and binary imagery in the expressive arts, and how this may relate to the psychological and political landscape of consciousness for the Western creative voice.

Whoa- that's a lot of thinking to be done... Anyone want to help?

election day 1
Mood:  spacey
Now Playing: nothing- except Bifo's talk from sydney indymedia
Election day 1.
photocopying until 1am this morning
woke up at 6am.
survived....kind of.


There is something strangely exhilarating about arguing with NOLS (Labor Left) people on Election day. The way that argument clarifies your thoughts is just magical. The way that a year's worth of frustration can, perhaps, be crystallised into a concise response to a provocation.

I spent the last 2 hours of campaigning today not wasting away in some empty polling booth, but outside manning, as ppl began to drift towards the bar, it would be a contest between NOLS and us ( i guess just me) as to who could walk with people to the line. It always seems such a lame contest, but nevertheless, important.

I ended up feeling soooo righteous and resentful towards Chris Friend and ----(forget his name temporarily). Chris was smugly saying that we dealt with the Libs, 'since they are preferencing us', whenever I was talking to ppl. I had just debunked this claim to him before, and yet he was still using it.

They were claiming responsibility for the Ed campaign overall (although throughout the year, their consistent attempts to exclude grassroots participation in decision making did not totally come to fruition, so they were lying whenever they said ROSE was the one who is the saviour of the ordinary student.)

I also realised that NOLS people year in year out claim that they will address this and that issue, without imagining how to make it achievable. It's disgraceful that they get votes on the back of hollow commitments: by having tickets on 'student poverty' when it is obvious that those candidates have not sat down and had a solid think about any long term strategy for a campaign. Just adds to the total vacuousness of their platform...

I realised another thing:

That students in the ALP have 2 conflicting hopes:
1. that the Labor party gets them somewhere
2. that the Labor party gets society somewhere.

As long as the ALP is a party of careerists, who play power games for the benefit of their own individual careers, it will not get society anywhere. As long as its members lack the humility to listen, to lead in order to become redundant, it will fail to really engage working people in the dream of egalitarianism. As long as it supports neo-liberalism, the dream of egalitarianism will be a mere mirage, receding from our attainment.


======================
So the culmination of this process...

I reckon that clarifying the basis of politics should be a big philosophical discipline in a similar way to the way Empiricists clarified and problematised the basis of science.
For example, what does 'political' mean? It seems that the Left uses the word in an entirely different way to the ordinary student, sometimes in a contradictory way.

For example, in terms of the question of agency, 'political' can be a descriptive word that implies disempowerment, as in "They were just being political, and didn't address the real issues". In this way, 'political' is a synonym for behaviour isolated from real engagement or true purpose; faction-like antagonism and superficial image building.

On the other hand, 'political' can mean the opposite: it can mean empowerment, such as "sexism is a political phenomenon", which means it is only embodied in so far as society allows it to be. It is not inevitable, rather it is contingent upon social power relationships of consent and complicity for its existence.
food for thought....

======================
Another outcome of today:
I spent a delirious hour in a traffic jam with Wenny today, and started to think about electoral reform, and how to do it in such a way as to encourage popular democracy and inspire ppl to create enabling structures that serve, rather than control us.
Also, to validate the traumatic experience that elections are for everyone (perhaps a necessary introduction to the machiavellian world that is student and Australian politics)

Here is a process I worked out:
1. Debrief elections. Validate how people felt.
2. Analyse these experiences. What aspects are individual problems? What aspects are cultural problems within certain factions? What aspects are due to our particular electoral structure? What aspects are due to the representative electoral structure in general? What aspects reflect a generalised alienation in our communities? (questions just a rough guide)
3. Identify and resolve conflicts and grievances. Nominate a neutral mediator if necessary (My internal reflecting: is this conflict destructive or creative? Is it necessarily a problem? Am I complaining about something intrinsic to the process we are engaging ourselves in?)
4. produce recommendations for electoral reform based on repeated grievances (perhaps a rep from each group can play a role)

Electoral Reform
5.Announce the process of electoral reform to students through Honi and lecture speeches/ petition on particular aspect??
6. Blue sky brainstorm, involving a call out to students to think of suggestions for electoral change.
What values are informing us? What kind of democracy is an ideal one?
7. Collate suggestions
8. make a list of pros and cons for each suggestion
9. perhaps shortlist the suggestions in some kind of democratic way
10. Build a student general meeting to vote on the suggestions (and perhaps the constitutional suggestions that have been in the pipeline for a while)

mid election crappery
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)

Westfield web of influence

Study airs danger of pollution to young lungs

Labor robs the poor to pay the middle

Bombing a consequence of policy, says Andrew Wilkie

Smart shower head

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.