Ding dong, the witch is dead
With great glee RD this week grappled with the much-anticipated demise of the Howard (mis)government's dumb-arse Workchoices laws. The introduction of the Fair Work Bill is the final nail in the coffin for Workchoices, although more lefty elements of the union movement, the media (and even the ALP) have labelled the new regime as Workchoices Lite. Ha de har har.
I spoke with IR academic Dr Rae Cooper to try and get some sense of what the 613-page document contained, and to see if it delivered on the pre-election Forward with Fairness policy. (Worst. Name. Ever.)
If you can be bothered, the audio is here. (it was recorded over Skype and sounds a little shitty...)
We then heard about local street rag The Independent's campaign against property developer Mirvac's new project and the SHAC gang in Melbourne's potential eviction. Mira la siguiente .
Independent Mirvac campaign
Local community newspaper The Independent is mounting a campaign against property developer Mirvac over their Waterfront development in Newstead.
The Indy has run a number of stories in recent weeks in relation to the proposed development, which would see a section of public access to the river closed.
The Independent says it received a significant number of letters in response to the campaign, which have been presented to Lord Mayor Campbell Newman.
In response, the Lord Mayor has reaffirmed his commitment to providing access to the river for all of Brisbane, but said that any development approved by council could not be changed at council’s demands.
The Independent says anyone with concerns about the development should make a written submission to the Brisbane City Council CEO at GPO Box 1434 Brisbane 4001.
SHAC
Meanwhile Melbourne students occupying a university-owned property are facing eviction this Friday after their proposal to collectively run the house was rejected by the University of Melbourne.
The Student Housing Action Collective says they’re not planning on going anywhere, despite a request from the university to leave voluntarily.
SHAC are calling for community support at a rally on Friday.
For more information go to www.shacmelbourne.blogspot.com
We were then hoping to hear from Dr Helen Caldicott, with the second part of her interview with Bob Alvarez, but technology failed... maybe next time.
Finally, we got the latest from Mumia Abu Jamal.
Music
There's Power in a Union – Billy Bragg
Keep it True - Blue King Brown
John Howard – Victims of Noah
Greed, $, Useless Children - Jay Reatard
Damaged Goods – Gang of Four
Today’s Lesson – Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
Milkshake – Holy Fuck
Holiday in Baghdad – Tijuana Cartel
Your Attitude is as Fucked as My Dress Sense – Dick Nasty
Thursday, November 27, 2008
More photos
I know, it's taken a week... Sydney boys The Dunhill Blues at the Swap Meet Party from Outerspace!
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Swap Meet Party from Outerspace photos!
I'm not sure how many blogger will let me put up, but here we go...
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Radio Democracy Playlist 19/11/08
No nukes is good nukes
The good news...
The Ranger mine crazily located in Kakadu National Park is due to cease operations this year.
The bad news...
Another 7 years' worth of uranium was discovered in the area, meaning Ranger's life may be extended.
The ACF says this is a dumb idea but no doubt state and federal governments, much like Energy Resources Australia and its owner Rio Tinto, are all rubbing their hands together at the thought of digging up the filthy $hit. At least behind closed doors. Apparently the Australian population doesn't much like the idea of selling nukes to non-NPT signatories. So maybe – hopefully – not.
Which lead us right into our next piece. We heard Dr Helen Caldicott's conversation with Robert Alvarez, who has written a report into the US's Global Nuclear Energy Partnership. The GNEP is a hare-brained product of the Bush administration, which if I understand correctly, is about processing and reusing spent uranium, plutonium and the like. While I'm all for reduce, reuse, recycle, I don't know that this is the best application of that philosophy. Yikes.
The more things change, right?
We then heard Mumia Abu Jamal's take on the election of Barack Obama on the US. MAJ says the machine behind Obama is – you guessed it – THE SAME as previous governments of both the Republicans and Democrats.
América latina está en marcha
Finally, we heard an update on three different Latin American countries and the typical political skulduggery that they suffer.
Peru – Anti APEC site shut down
Organisers of political demonstrations against the 2008 APEC meeting in Peru have claimed a website they are using to coordinate actions has been shut down.
The anti-APEC 2008 site was down on Sunday night, with local organising groups claiming interference on the part of the Peruvian Government and international – namely US – security forces.
The activists asked: “How can they promote economic integration, prosperity and a culture of peace when freedom of expression is restricted?
"The internet is one of the few spaces remaining for activists fighting neoliberalism – what other forms of repression will be seen at APEC Peru 2008?"
The website is now back online, with actions scheduled for the rest of the week.
For more information: www.antiapec.tk (in Spanish) or indymedia.org.
Mexico – More confrontations in Zapatista country
See Kristin Bricker's story at Narconews here.
Colombia – Yet another unionist arrested
Briarpatch magazine provided us with a comprehensive overview of the case of Liliany Obando, a Colombian trade unionist, activist, independent filmmaker and single mother of two who has been under arrest in Colombia since August.
To learn more about the Free Liliany Obando campaign, go to www.colombiasolidarity.net.
Musica
Emergency – The Herd
The Elite – Bill Hicks
Bulshit Politicians – Propagandhi
Peligro – Mano Negra
Legalize It – Elephant Wise
Pig City – The Parameters
We Call Upon the Author - Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
The good news...
The Ranger mine crazily located in Kakadu National Park is due to cease operations this year.
The bad news...
Another 7 years' worth of uranium was discovered in the area, meaning Ranger's life may be extended.
The ACF says this is a dumb idea but no doubt state and federal governments, much like Energy Resources Australia and its owner Rio Tinto, are all rubbing their hands together at the thought of digging up the filthy $hit. At least behind closed doors. Apparently the Australian population doesn't much like the idea of selling nukes to non-NPT signatories. So maybe – hopefully – not.
Which lead us right into our next piece. We heard Dr Helen Caldicott's conversation with Robert Alvarez, who has written a report into the US's Global Nuclear Energy Partnership. The GNEP is a hare-brained product of the Bush administration, which if I understand correctly, is about processing and reusing spent uranium, plutonium and the like. While I'm all for reduce, reuse, recycle, I don't know that this is the best application of that philosophy. Yikes.
The more things change, right?
We then heard Mumia Abu Jamal's take on the election of Barack Obama on the US. MAJ says the machine behind Obama is – you guessed it – THE SAME as previous governments of both the Republicans and Democrats.
América latina está en marcha
Finally, we heard an update on three different Latin American countries and the typical political skulduggery that they suffer.
Peru – Anti APEC site shut down
Organisers of political demonstrations against the 2008 APEC meeting in Peru have claimed a website they are using to coordinate actions has been shut down.
The anti-APEC 2008 site was down on Sunday night, with local organising groups claiming interference on the part of the Peruvian Government and international – namely US – security forces.
The activists asked: “How can they promote economic integration, prosperity and a culture of peace when freedom of expression is restricted?
"The internet is one of the few spaces remaining for activists fighting neoliberalism – what other forms of repression will be seen at APEC Peru 2008?"
The website is now back online, with actions scheduled for the rest of the week.
For more information: www.antiapec.tk (in Spanish) or indymedia.org.
Mexico – More confrontations in Zapatista country
See Kristin Bricker's story at Narconews here.
Colombia – Yet another unionist arrested
Briarpatch magazine provided us with a comprehensive overview of the case of Liliany Obando, a Colombian trade unionist, activist, independent filmmaker and single mother of two who has been under arrest in Colombia since August.
To learn more about the Free Liliany Obando campaign, go to www.colombiasolidarity.net.
Musica
Emergency – The Herd
The Elite – Bill Hicks
Bulshit Politicians – Propagandhi
Peligro – Mano Negra
Legalize It – Elephant Wise
Pig City – The Parameters
We Call Upon the Author - Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Radio Democracy Playlist 12/11/08
This week we spoke to Jess Maynard, who is in the NT community of Yuendumu participating in the ActNow Challenge – a youth empowerment and community development program. Jess is in the Territory for 10 weeks learning the Warlpiri language, working and sharing a whole heap of artisitic and cultural experiences with the local indigenous mob. She said as a city-slicker, visiting this part of Australia is a bit like going to another country – I imagine she's right. Yuendumu has been in the news lately because of a series of claims and counter-claims in an article in the Melbourne Age, which quoted Yuendumu woman Peggy Brown as saying: ""It’s working, no doubt about it", in relation to the ongoing clusterfuck that is the NT Intervention.
Next, death row inmate and radical activist/journalist Mumia Abu Jamal gave us his take on the ongoing financial catastrophe. Mumia's regular dispatches are available at prisonradio.org.
Radio Democracy was delighted to have a new ratbag in the studio this week. Dave came by to give us the lowdown on the proposed "Clean Feed" – a mandatory internet filter the Federal Government is hoping to introduce to 'protect the children.' Dave's story is posted below, and Greens Senator Scott Ludlam's questions for Comms Minister Senator Steven Conroy here.
Today's program was dedicated to Mama Africa – the longtime civil rights and anti-apartheid activist and musician Miriam Makeba, who sadly died after performing in Italy this week.
Sounds
Blister - Axe to Grind
Flow & Plenty - Busker
The Drones - I am the Supercargo
The Upsteppers - World at my Feet (playing at 4ZzZ fundraiser Dub Day Afternoon!)
Combat Wombat - Corruption Dub
Miriam Makeba- Pata Pata
Mandatory Internet censorship
David McLagan
The Labor Government is proposing to introduce mandatory internet censorship, which will require all Internet Service Providers (ISP's) to provide a mandatory filter, blocking access to 'blacklisted sites'. The 'blacklist' will be initiated and monitored by the Australia Communications and Media Authority (ACMA). This latest campaign to control the final frontier of totally free media is being championed by Labor Senator Stephen Conroy, who has coined this 'you’re with us or against us' quote "If people equate freedom of speech with watching child pornography, then the Rudd-Labor Government is going to disagree."
So this is about trying to protect our family's children from things such as internet pornography, child pornography rings and internet predators. Taking the freedom of speech question out of the equation just for a second, this proposed legislation is a pathetic attempt to stop a problem that didn't even stem from the internet. Child pornography and paedophilia exist in the real world; they were around before the internet. Now no one is arguing that these things are very wrong and yes children need to be protected. Nor is anyone arguing that the internet has undoubtedly increased the amount of this content that is out there. But child pornographers are not caught online due to the invisible nature and secrecy of child pornography ring. They are caught through police breaking into human networks and the information and contacts that they get from these people and their computers.
As we can see if this is to be done then it must be effectual or it’s simply not worth doing. So how well can the ACMA control the internet when there are currently around 8 billion web pages? Currently there are two types of filtering techniques that could be used; firstly index filtering. This involves blocking all content on a pre-determined 'blacklist' of Uniform Resource Locators (URLs - the address), Internet Protocol addresses (IP addresses - the numbers identifying points on the internet) and Domain Name System (DNS - used to associate human-readable or memorable names with the IP addresses). The second technique is content analysis filtering. As the human resources required to read through every potentially 'dangerous' page is impossible this is done by artificial intelligence, which uses a complex system of algorithms to determine whether a page is ok or not. These systems are commonly referred to as "guessing engines". Therefore if the policy is implemented our internet access will be censored by a meagre 'blacklist' that is meant to keep up with the highly dynamic environment of the internet, where new pages are born everyday and previously banned pages can simply move to other unknown locations or alternately by software that guesses whether a page is ok or not.
Another major issue related to this protection is the ease of getting around content blocking. Onion-routing is technology that can allow you to roam the internet with freedom and privacy. Simple downloading of a program called the TOR-project allows this. The messages you send and receive are encrypted, using onion-router technology, your messages are sent through layers (like an onion) to remove the encryption and therefore allow the content, origin and destination of the message to remain anonymous. This has been frequently used in countries like China, Iran and Saudi Arabia, where web browsing is tightly filtered and monitored. Countries, which our government has hypocritically accused of preventing freedoms of speech.
Internet censorship requires additional software, so this leads to the question whether or not this will slow down connections. The government claims that a recent report of ISP content filters showed that this didn't affect broadband performance. But the truth of the matter after reading the findings of the report indicate this to be very misleading. The report 'Closed Environment Testing of ISP - Level internet content filters' involved six different ISP content filters. Results showed even when the programs were connected and not filtering there was a reduction, be it small (generally less that 10%). When filtering the performance of broadband speed was reduced by 2% in one case, 20-35% in three of the cases and in the remaining two performance speed was reduced to less than 15%. The effectiveness of content blocking from a pre-determined 'blacklists' was too questionable - around 88-90% for three products and around 95% for the other three. Two of the products also blocked 8% of 'non-blacklisted material, whilst the others blocked around 3%. Notably performance speed didn't correspond with the level of security.
All these points on this very poor legislation aside and back to our rights, our freedoms of speech. I'm an adult over the legal age of 18 and have the choice to look at pornography if I care to do so. I have this right to do so because as I stated I am not a child. The Labor government is telling us that we all need to be treated like children and that they are our parents so they will tell us what we can view. There is a clear solution to the problem of protecting our children from the 'evils' of the internet. Let parents, who have a responsibility to help their children grow and make better decisions do so. Don't let a government trying to play mummy and daddy to the whole country tell us what we can view. On the governments own website there is a page with a link to download free content filters. A perfect response, case closed. The government has provided a free, adequate response to a relevant issue they feel may affect children and parents get to make their own decisions in how they actually raise their kids. Therefore why take this legislation to another level. This clearly indicates there is more to this policy, more sinister issues. If the government softens us up with a first level of content filtering it makes the next level that much easier to bring in. Contrasting political views, religious views, swearing, music, even past historical events that don't sit quite right, anything that the government deems inappropriate could be eradicated from our access. It would make it very easy to govern if people didn't even know any alternate existed.
This is clearly a case of politicians who simply don't know anything about the position they are in trying to blindly push forward without even considering the reality of the situation. The Labor government is trying to close the eyes of the people in this country and tell them that everything will be warm and fuzzy in there. People need to keep their eyes open and use the last bastion of totally free media to view the reality of this situation what they are trying to do.
http://www.acma.gov.au/webwr/_assets/main/lib310554/isp-level_internet_content_filtering_trial-report.pdf
http://www.netalert.gov.au/
http://www.efa.org.au/
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/stories/s2138157.htm
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/11/10/2414895.htm
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/12/31/2129471.htm
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/10/24/2399876.htm
Next, death row inmate and radical activist/journalist Mumia Abu Jamal gave us his take on the ongoing financial catastrophe. Mumia's regular dispatches are available at prisonradio.org.
Radio Democracy was delighted to have a new ratbag in the studio this week. Dave came by to give us the lowdown on the proposed "Clean Feed" – a mandatory internet filter the Federal Government is hoping to introduce to 'protect the children.' Dave's story is posted below, and Greens Senator Scott Ludlam's questions for Comms Minister Senator Steven Conroy here.
Today's program was dedicated to Mama Africa – the longtime civil rights and anti-apartheid activist and musician Miriam Makeba, who sadly died after performing in Italy this week.
Sounds
Blister - Axe to Grind
Flow & Plenty - Busker
The Drones - I am the Supercargo
The Upsteppers - World at my Feet (playing at 4ZzZ fundraiser Dub Day Afternoon!)
Combat Wombat - Corruption Dub
Miriam Makeba- Pata Pata
Mandatory Internet censorship
David McLagan
The Labor Government is proposing to introduce mandatory internet censorship, which will require all Internet Service Providers (ISP's) to provide a mandatory filter, blocking access to 'blacklisted sites'. The 'blacklist' will be initiated and monitored by the Australia Communications and Media Authority (ACMA). This latest campaign to control the final frontier of totally free media is being championed by Labor Senator Stephen Conroy, who has coined this 'you’re with us or against us' quote "If people equate freedom of speech with watching child pornography, then the Rudd-Labor Government is going to disagree."
So this is about trying to protect our family's children from things such as internet pornography, child pornography rings and internet predators. Taking the freedom of speech question out of the equation just for a second, this proposed legislation is a pathetic attempt to stop a problem that didn't even stem from the internet. Child pornography and paedophilia exist in the real world; they were around before the internet. Now no one is arguing that these things are very wrong and yes children need to be protected. Nor is anyone arguing that the internet has undoubtedly increased the amount of this content that is out there. But child pornographers are not caught online due to the invisible nature and secrecy of child pornography ring. They are caught through police breaking into human networks and the information and contacts that they get from these people and their computers.
As we can see if this is to be done then it must be effectual or it’s simply not worth doing. So how well can the ACMA control the internet when there are currently around 8 billion web pages? Currently there are two types of filtering techniques that could be used; firstly index filtering. This involves blocking all content on a pre-determined 'blacklist' of Uniform Resource Locators (URLs - the address), Internet Protocol addresses (IP addresses - the numbers identifying points on the internet) and Domain Name System (DNS - used to associate human-readable or memorable names with the IP addresses). The second technique is content analysis filtering. As the human resources required to read through every potentially 'dangerous' page is impossible this is done by artificial intelligence, which uses a complex system of algorithms to determine whether a page is ok or not. These systems are commonly referred to as "guessing engines". Therefore if the policy is implemented our internet access will be censored by a meagre 'blacklist' that is meant to keep up with the highly dynamic environment of the internet, where new pages are born everyday and previously banned pages can simply move to other unknown locations or alternately by software that guesses whether a page is ok or not.
Another major issue related to this protection is the ease of getting around content blocking. Onion-routing is technology that can allow you to roam the internet with freedom and privacy. Simple downloading of a program called the TOR-project allows this. The messages you send and receive are encrypted, using onion-router technology, your messages are sent through layers (like an onion) to remove the encryption and therefore allow the content, origin and destination of the message to remain anonymous. This has been frequently used in countries like China, Iran and Saudi Arabia, where web browsing is tightly filtered and monitored. Countries, which our government has hypocritically accused of preventing freedoms of speech.
Internet censorship requires additional software, so this leads to the question whether or not this will slow down connections. The government claims that a recent report of ISP content filters showed that this didn't affect broadband performance. But the truth of the matter after reading the findings of the report indicate this to be very misleading. The report 'Closed Environment Testing of ISP - Level internet content filters' involved six different ISP content filters. Results showed even when the programs were connected and not filtering there was a reduction, be it small (generally less that 10%). When filtering the performance of broadband speed was reduced by 2% in one case, 20-35% in three of the cases and in the remaining two performance speed was reduced to less than 15%. The effectiveness of content blocking from a pre-determined 'blacklists' was too questionable - around 88-90% for three products and around 95% for the other three. Two of the products also blocked 8% of 'non-blacklisted material, whilst the others blocked around 3%. Notably performance speed didn't correspond with the level of security.
All these points on this very poor legislation aside and back to our rights, our freedoms of speech. I'm an adult over the legal age of 18 and have the choice to look at pornography if I care to do so. I have this right to do so because as I stated I am not a child. The Labor government is telling us that we all need to be treated like children and that they are our parents so they will tell us what we can view. There is a clear solution to the problem of protecting our children from the 'evils' of the internet. Let parents, who have a responsibility to help their children grow and make better decisions do so. Don't let a government trying to play mummy and daddy to the whole country tell us what we can view. On the governments own website there is a page with a link to download free content filters. A perfect response, case closed. The government has provided a free, adequate response to a relevant issue they feel may affect children and parents get to make their own decisions in how they actually raise their kids. Therefore why take this legislation to another level. This clearly indicates there is more to this policy, more sinister issues. If the government softens us up with a first level of content filtering it makes the next level that much easier to bring in. Contrasting political views, religious views, swearing, music, even past historical events that don't sit quite right, anything that the government deems inappropriate could be eradicated from our access. It would make it very easy to govern if people didn't even know any alternate existed.
This is clearly a case of politicians who simply don't know anything about the position they are in trying to blindly push forward without even considering the reality of the situation. The Labor government is trying to close the eyes of the people in this country and tell them that everything will be warm and fuzzy in there. People need to keep their eyes open and use the last bastion of totally free media to view the reality of this situation what they are trying to do.
http://www.acma.gov.au/webwr/_assets/main/lib310554/isp-level_internet_content_filtering_trial-report.pdf
http://www.netalert.gov.au/
http://www.efa.org.au/
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/stories/s2138157.htm
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/11/10/2414895.htm
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/12/31/2129471.htm
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/10/24/2399876.htm
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Radio Democracy Playlist 05/11/08
Black Justice
While one black man was deservedly (thankfully, I might add) nominated president in the USA, in Australia another black man was the victim of a justice system that resembles the US's deep south under segregation. RD spoke once again to Lauren Mellor from the Aboriginal Rights Coalition about this Friday's International Day of Action in solidarity with Palm Island man Lex Wotton. There are actions happening all around Australia and in Aotearoa (NZ), the UK, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador and Colombia.
Radio Democracy – all of 4ZzZ, in fact – will continue to cover this story, and bring you information on how you can get active. The Brisbane rally is taking place outside the District Court at 9:30 am tommorrow, as Lex is being sentenced in Townsville. His legal team are reported to be mounting an appeal against the guilty verdict.
Sailing the seas of donations please
We then heard from Ben, who's aboard the good ship Steve Irwin with the rest of the Sea Shepherd crew while they're in Brisbane. The Sea Shepherds are having a benefit gig at the Arena on Friday the 21st of November and are also putting out a call for some donated supplies
while they're in our fine waters.
We had a look at a few stories to come out of the US election where people got grumpy about voting annoyances. Bazza went on to win as you well know, but there were at least a couple of incidents, including famous lefty actor Tim Robbins saying he'd be arrested before he would be denied his vote.
Music
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised – Gil-Scott Heron
Police Brutality – Combat Wombat
We've Got a Bigger Problem Now – Dead Kennedys
I Chase the Devil – Max Romeo
Can't Wait to Finish School – Kicks
Singie – Dubmarine
Demolition Girl – The Saints
Babylon – Dubbly (under the community notices)
Imagine This – Wax Audio (for George)
While one black man was deservedly (thankfully, I might add) nominated president in the USA, in Australia another black man was the victim of a justice system that resembles the US's deep south under segregation. RD spoke once again to Lauren Mellor from the Aboriginal Rights Coalition about this Friday's International Day of Action in solidarity with Palm Island man Lex Wotton. There are actions happening all around Australia and in Aotearoa (NZ), the UK, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador and Colombia.
Radio Democracy – all of 4ZzZ, in fact – will continue to cover this story, and bring you information on how you can get active. The Brisbane rally is taking place outside the District Court at 9:30 am tommorrow, as Lex is being sentenced in Townsville. His legal team are reported to be mounting an appeal against the guilty verdict.
Sailing the seas of donations please
We then heard from Ben, who's aboard the good ship Steve Irwin with the rest of the Sea Shepherd crew while they're in Brisbane. The Sea Shepherds are having a benefit gig at the Arena on Friday the 21st of November and are also putting out a call for some donated supplies
while they're in our fine waters.Shh... don't mention the war
The Federal Government this week announced a $250 levy on all Australian university students – just don't call it compulsory student unionism. Actually, there's no danger of that happening; the NUS-ALP love-in that has been happening since Ruddy came to power has taken the teeth out of the NUS's 'repeal VSU' campaign. National Prez Angus Mc Farland was nice enough to remove himself from the US election coverage to tell us nothing about what this meant for student unions in the future.
The Obama Show
The Federal Government this week announced a $250 levy on all Australian university students – just don't call it compulsory student unionism. Actually, there's no danger of that happening; the NUS-ALP love-in that has been happening since Ruddy came to power has taken the teeth out of the NUS's 'repeal VSU' campaign. National Prez Angus Mc Farland was nice enough to remove himself from the US election coverage to tell us nothing about what this meant for student unions in the future.
The Obama Show
We had a look at a few stories to come out of the US election where people got grumpy about voting annoyances. Bazza went on to win as you well know, but there were at least a couple of incidents, including famous lefty actor Tim Robbins saying he'd be arrested before he would be denied his vote.
Music
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised – Gil-Scott Heron
Police Brutality – Combat Wombat
We've Got a Bigger Problem Now – Dead Kennedys
I Chase the Devil – Max Romeo
Can't Wait to Finish School – Kicks
Singie – Dubmarine
Demolition Girl – The Saints
Babylon – Dubbly (under the community notices)
Imagine This – Wax Audio (for George)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
