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Anarchist Age Weekly Review No. 630

by louis bettencourt
CHARADES´ --- The game of charades that´s being played out in Federal parliament does
neither the participants nor the process any favours. Anybody who still
believes that the parliamentary process has anything to do with transparency
has only to waste a few hours of their lives listening to a parliamentary
debate to know that truth is not just the first casualty of war.

The verbal pirouettes performed by many parliamentarians make a mockery of
the idea that truth plays a central role in the parliamentary process.
Opaque answers to crystal clear questions, highlights that accountability is
the last thing on most parliamentary representatives´ minds. The
congratulatory backslapping that occurs when a parliamentary representative
sidesteps the truth is an insult to the intelligence of the electorate.
Parliament has become a stage for the theatre of the absurd, heads of
departments and senior bureaucrats play cameo roles in parliamentary
inquires, the truth the last thing on their minds. The length of the list
of their oral indiscretions is an indication of their standing in the
bureaucracy. Obnoxiousness, obscurantism and obsequiousness are the tools
of their disingenuous performances.

Parliamentary reputations are enhanced by the dexterity performers display
in their ability to obfuscate the obvious. The truth in Howard´s parliament
has become as welcome as a tsunami at a beach party. Human beings are
systematically stripped of their reputations. The trauma, suffering, pain
and indignities experienced by those whose lives become the verbal currency
of parliamentary debate, are trivialised and dismissed.

Debate in the Australian Federal parliament has become so debased, it´s time
the participants in the parliamentary theatre of the absurd undertook to
take the Trappist vow of perpetual silence when they are sworn into
parliament by the Governor General.

UNITED STATES COUP
While the United States President was telling who ever cared to listen to
his inaugural address, the US was going to export democracy ´American style´
around the world, his government supported and bankrolled the Nepalese
King´s seizure of power in a coup two weeks ago. The coup resulted in the
dissolution of parliament, media censorship and the jostling of hundreds of
parliamentarians, trade union leaders, media personnel and political
activists.

Faced with a growing rebellion by a popular Maoist movement that now governs
over 70% of Nepal, a movement that aims to topple a corrupt feudal monarchy
that rules one of the poorest countries in the world, the Bush
administration has thrown its support behind the King. The coup gives the
monarchy a free hand to try to wipe out the challenges to its authority
posed by both parliament and the Maoist rebellion.

The Bush administration is hoping that the 100 day window of opportunity
they´ve given the Nepalese military to use the military equipment and
advisors they´ve airlifted into the country, gives the Nepalese army enough
time to break the back of the rebellion.

US, British and Indian aid has been instrumental in the monarchy´s
successful attempts to temporarily halt the Maoist inspired rebellion in
Nepal. While the US government makes the right noises about suspending aid
if ´democracy´ is not restored, they have privately supported the Royal coup
because they were concerned that the Maoist revolutionaries had significant
support within the Nepalese parliament.

Anybody who thinks that the US government has any interest in the democratic
process only has to look at their past record and their current record in
Nepal to see that the leopard has not changed its spots. Nepal is the
latest name that has been added to the long list of democratic governments
that have been toppled by US backed dictators.

´DEBACLE´
Telstra´s decision to withdraw funding from Life Line has drawn the ire of
Australians from the Prime Minister down. Life Line´s current plight is due
to a number of factors; inadequate government funding, rapidly increasing
demand for their services as a result of under funded State and Commonwealth
psychiatric services and increasing levels of anxiety and depression in a
community that is increasingly being divided into a nation of ´winners and
losers´

The Howard government has consistently refused to adequately fund services
that should be run by the State, actively encouraging and relying on
corporate and private philanthropy to fill the gap. It´s ironic that John
Howard has entered the debate on the side of Life Line, berating Telstra for
withdrawing their financial support.

In Telstra´s defence (yes, they do have a defence), they claim that they
will be using the money that has been allocated to Life Line over the past
10 years to provide seed money for new community projects.

Life Line´s current dilemma lies fairly and squarely in the hands of both
the Commonwealth and State governments. Organisations like Life Line are
providing services that should be funded by governments, not private
corporations. If the government wants these important services to remain in
the hands of volunteer groups and they want the corporate sector to fund
them, they should levy a 1% ´charity´ tax on corporations that make a profit
of more than $1 million and use the funds collected to support volunteer
groups that are providing important services to the community.

Relying on private philanthropy is both ineffective and unfair. Ineffective
because not all corporations provide funds for charitable services and
unfair because those corporations that have provided funds in the past like
Telstra, are targeted when they change their funding formulas and programs,
while those that don´t provide one cent are not scrutinised by the fourth
estate or berated b the Prime Minister.

COMPASSION? TRUTH?
THE AUSTRALIAN WAY OF LIFE?
There seems to be a lot of teeth gnashing, breast beating and sighing going
on in the fourth estate about Australians current predilection for selective
compassion and their lack of interest in the truth. Hawke´s, Keating´s and
Howard´s greatest achievement has revolved around their ability to fireproof
both the political and corporate sector by changing Australian culture and
the Australian character from one that sought collective solutions to
problems, to one that demands that the individual find their own solutions.

Australia´s political institutions and the bureaucracy, freed of the fear of
collective retribution for their decisions and actions, have become a law
onto themselves, confident that the individual will not be able to negotiate
past the army of advisors, spin doctors, legal mumbo jumbo and the
bureaucratic maze that protects both the public and private sector from
scrutiny and accountability. It´s not that people don´t care; it´s that
individuals understand that there is no purpose in beating their heads
against a brick wall.

The successful destruction of the idea that people need to work collectively
to achieve their goals has left the individual in a particularly powerless
position when confronted with stories about private and public corruption,
half truths, lies and deceit. It´s no accident that the Howard government´s
Industrial Relations laws are designed to destroy the union´s ability to
collectively bargain. Individuals have little, if any, chance of bargaining
effectively with employers as individuals, that´s why so much time and
effort has gone into campaigns that are directed at destroying the union´s
ability to bargain collectively.

Corporations, political institutions, the courts and the bureaucracy only
become accountable when placed under collective pressure. Individual acts,
no matter how courageous or full of integrity, can be swept aside.
Australians lack of interest in the truth and their predilection to want to
live in a political social and cultural vacuum is the logical outcome of a
political process that discourages the individual from seeking collective
solutions to the problems that face them as both individuals and as members
of a community.

EXTRAORDINARY
Innuendo, insinuation, rumour, are the tools that the Howard government and
the more conservative elements of the fourth estate have used to trivialise
and dismiss concerns surrounding Mamdouh Habib´s allegations regarding the
treatment he received while a prisoner of the United States.

Habib´s extraordinary allegations raise serious concerns about whether the
end justify´s the means. The US and Australia face the very real dilemma of
whether the means they are using to conduct their war on terror are
destroying the very same institutions they claim they are protecting.

It´s sobering to think that although Habib was held in detention for 3
years, repeatedly tortured and denied even the most basic rights, he was
released without any charges ever being laid. Now that he has returned to
Australia, the court of public opinion is being manipulated by a clever
character assassination campaign that has been orchestrated and delivered by
some of the most senior political figures in this country.

If evidence exists that Habib may have broken any Australian law, he should
be charged, if no evidence exists, he should be left alone, his passport
should be given back to him and he and his family should be left to get on
with their lives. Habib should not be hounded because he refused to answer
questions in his ´Sixty Minutes´ interview that his lawyers advised him not
to answer because it could pre-empt his legal challenge to the government´s
decision to withhold his passport. He, like every Australian resident,
should be given the right to reserve his defence.

The ephemeral victory he may achieve in the court of public opinion, if he
tells the whole story, could seriously jeopardise an chance he may have of
clearing his name in a court of law, a much more substantial and important
victory than he could achieve in the media manipulated court of public
opinion.

Mr. Habib´s treatment at the hands of the Australian government, the
Opposition and the fourth estate, says more about the shortcomings of us as
a people and as a country than it says about any shortcomings in Mr. Habib´s
character and any gaps in Mr. Habib´s account of the treatment he received
and continues to receive at the hands of his tormentors.

ANARCHIST QUESTION AND ANSWER
Q. WHAT IS A DUAL POWER SITUATION?
A. Anarchists are fond of using the words revolution and dual power in the
same breath. In real life, the terms rarely coincide. Revolution, the
forcible overthrow of a government, doesn´t necessarily result in the
creation of an anarchist society. Revolutionary situations can lead to the
creation of both authoritarian and non-authoritarian societies. Revolutions
that occur in a political vacuum normally result in the creation of a
society where a small group is able to exercise power through the use of
force. In revolutionary situations where no one group enjoys a monopoly on
the use of force, warlords spring up who use force to try to extend their
sphere of influence within that society.
The creation of a dual power situation, a society within a society, is a
goal that many anarchists have tried to achieve and continue to work for.
An egalitarian non-authoritarian community is likely to be created by the
slow methodical formation of institutions, communities, co-operatives,
collectives and cultures that challenge the power exerted by the State and
the corporate sector. Groups become movements when activists create enough
viable structures within the societies they live and work in, that they pose
a direct challenge to the power of those who normally exert power. As these
parallel structures (societies within a society) increase in size and
strength, they begin to pose a real challenge to dominant ideology and
culture. Eventually the tensions that are created between two competing
cultures and ideologies that share the same physical space become so intense
that movements that begin their lives as a collection of ideas pose a direct
physical threat to what were considered to be monolithic societies.
The Anarchist movement that participated in the Spanish Revolution was able
to survive for so long in the midst of a brutal Civil war because they had
been able to create a dual power situation in significant sections of Spain
as a result of 70 years of struggle. When the fascist forces attempted to
seize the State apparatus through a military coup on the 19th of July 1936,
anarchists were able to temporarily thwart the military takeover because
they had created parallel institutions, organisations and structures that
allowed power to be directly transferred from the State, the church and the
corporate sector into the hands of parallel structures that had been created
through decades of political, cultural and ideological struggle.

ACTION BOX
PUBLIC COMMEMORATIONS
Public commemorations? Yes, public commemorations. Why should dominant
culture set the agenda about what we as a community celebrate? In
Australia, a horse race - the Melbourne Cup - takes precedence over much
more important days. The people of Melbourne enjoy a public holiday on the
1st Tuesday in November to celebrate the Melbourne Cup, but they don´t get a
public holiday to mark May Day. ANZAC Day, Australia Day (Invasion Day)
even the Queen´s Birthday, takes precedence over the Eureka rebellion.
The ´kulture´ culture wars are real. Over the past few decades,
authoritarian elements within the corporate sector, the bureaucracy,
government and the State have successfully changed Australian ´culture´ from
a culture that pursued reforms to a reactionary one. Faced with the spectre
of reactionary elements within our community celebrating events and people
that have little or no significance to us and to many other Australians,
it´s time we started fighting back, reclaiming our past and celebrated that
past through a series of public commemorations.
At midday on Tuesday 22nd February, the Anarchist Media Institute will be
reclaiming that past by holding a public commemoration outside the Victorian
Supreme Court, 210 William Street, Melbourne, to mark the 150th anniversary
to the day of the acquittal of John Joseph, an Afro-American miner born in
New York, who was charged with High Treason for his participation in the
Eureka rebellion. Over the next 6 weeks, the other 12 miners charged with
High Treason were also acquitted of these charges. The acquittal of these
13 men and the public display of emotion that greeted their acquittals in
Melbourne, forced the colonial authorities to confront the reality that they
faced, grant the miners the reforms they fought for or face an armed
insurrection. Forced to choose between the two, they granted most of the
reforms that had been demanded by the Eureka miners. This pivotal event in
Australian history continues to be ignored by politicians, the State, the
fourth estate and the corporate sector. It´s important we reclaim our
history and publicly commemorate this important moment. Irrespective of
where you live in Australia, the 22nd of February is a day we need to
remember and publicly commemorate.
Join us outside the Supreme Court in Victoria. If you can´t join us, hold
your own public commemoration, reclaim the past and use the lessons of the
past to change the future.

AUSTRALIAN RADICAL HISTORY
RADICAL 19TH CENTURY
UNION NEWSPAPERS
Anyone who´s had a look at a union newsletter recently knows that it´s not
often that the content makes the blood boil. Well things were different in
the late 19th century. Working people were mobilising, they were forming
unions that used direct action as a bargaining tool. Working people in the
late 19th century had few distractions, no you beaut Alternative Liberal
Party (ALP) to support, no TV or radio, public meetings and newspapers
played an important role in people´s lives.
The Brisbane ´Worker´ was launched as a consequence of a decision made by a
conference of unions on the 8th December 1889. The first issue of the
´Worker´, a fortnightly newspaper bankrolled by 15 separate unions, was sold
during the Labour Day march in Brisbane on the 1st March 1890. All workers
on the newspaper were paid the same wage. William Lane, the 1st Editor, was
paid $3 a week, the same wage that every other worker on the paper was paid.
The ´Worker´ provided much needed analysis and information during the 1891
Shearers strike. Late in 1891, the Queensland government tried to close the
´Worker´ down by introducing a special newspaper postage rate. The ´Worker´
was soon followed by other union newspapers. The ´Shearers Record´, a
privately owned union paper followed soon after the ´Worker´ was published.
The ´Shearers Record´ was soon replaced by the ´Hummer´. The Wagga branch
of the Australian Shearers Union bankrolled the paper. The 1st edition
appeared on the 19th October 1891. Within a year or so, the ´Hummer´ was
renamed ´The Australian Workers´. The Brisbane ´Worker´ under the
editorship of William Lane had a marked impact on worker´s struggles
throughout Queensland.
Henry Lawson often wrote for the ´Worker´ while it was being published. In
the April 1891 issue of the ´Worker´, Henry Lawson wrote one of his most
famous poems, one which because of its radical content, doesn´t seem to make
it into modern day Lawson anthologies.

Our parents toiled to make a home,
Hard grubbin it was and clearing
They wasn´t crowded much with lords
When they was pioneerin!
But now that we have made the land,
A garden full of promise,
Old greed must crook ´is dirty land
An´ come ter take it from us.

So we must fly a rebel flag,
As others did before us;
And we must sing a rebel song,
And join in rebel chorus.
We´ll make the tyrants feel the sting,
O´ those that they would throttle;
They needn´t say the fault was ours,
If blood should stain the wattle.
- Henry Lawson

SOURCE OF MATERIAL FOR ARTICLE:
´THE BITTER FIGHT´-Joe HARRIS
University of Queesland Press 1977.

BOOK REVIEW
´HARRY BRIDGES-A Centennial Retrospective. An Oral History of the Origins
of the ILWU and the 1934 Strike´
Edited & Introduction by Harvey SCHWARTZ Published by Harry Bridges
Institute 2001,
harrybridges [at] aol.com
Harry Renton Bridges (1901-1990) was born in Australia in 1901 and arrived
in San Francisco in 1920. He was a member of the I.W.W. (Industrial Workers
of the World) and as a seaman, participated in the nationwide United States
Seamen´s strike in 1921. In 1922, Harry began work on the San Francisco
waterfront. The International Longshore Association was established in
1924. Over the next 10 years, the union was involved in a series of
struggles that culminated in the 1934 Maritime strike. Using direct action,
support for progressive causes, rank and file unionism and as outspoken
opponents of racial discrimination in the 1920´s and ´30´s, Bridges was
instrumental in the formation of a union that won the bloody and deadly 1934
Pacific Maritime strike.
Harry Bridges, the founding President of the I.L.W.U. (International
Longshore & Warehouse Union), maintained his position as President till he
retired at the age of 76 in 1977. Over this long period, the I.L.W.U.
weathered legal persecution and police harassment and became one of the
strongest and most militant unions in the US. Bridges didn´t renounce his
Australian citizenship till 1946. He became an US citizen in 1946 because
he was concerned that he would be deported back to Australia, just like
I.W.W. members in Australia in 1917 were deported back to the US, New
Zealand and Europe for belonging to the I.W.W. Accused of being a communist
during the McCarthy era, Bridges was never a member of the Communist Party.
The 18-page pamphlet documents Harry Bridges´ life as a unionist and his
contribution to both the US and the International union movement. He is one
Australian who has been able to leave his mark in the US. His early
experiences with the I.W.W. gave him the knowledge and experience required
to form and expand a trade union that was able through its militant
traditions to win its members rights and conditions that other workers just
dreamed of.
This pamphlet is available from the:
Harry Bridges Institute, 461 West Sixth Street,
Suite 210, San Pedro, CA 90731, US.
Tel: 310-831-2397 Fax: 310-831-97003, Email:harrybridges2001 [at] aol.com
Thanks to the Maritime Union of Australia-Victoria branch for providing me
with the review copy of this interesting little pamphlet about a man who I
knew nothing about.

PERSONAL OBSERVATION
Some people go for weeks, months without having a conversation; others can´t
get a quiet moment, hemmed in by a torrent of discordant sounds,
masquerading as informed commentary. Occasionally, you hear something
you´ve never heard before. Not often, occasionally. I was involved in one
of those superficial conversations that occur as part of a normal day.
An old woman in her 70´s, disabled for many years, needing assistance from a
carer, was talking to me. She´d introduced me to one of her new carers, a
woman from Africa, who´d been in Australia for over a decade. We´d
exchanged a few words about her country of origin, you know the usual stuff.
She went off to do something; the old lady moved across her bed and
whispered, ´Joe, her youngest daughter is 6. She has started Grade 1 at a
new school yesterday´. I held back a yawn, maintaining an interested look,
my mind light years away, floating in a neighbouring galaxy.
´She came home crying from school, she was very upset´, I wasn´t going to
get involved in this one, I was light years away, had a multitude of people
to see and didn´t have the magic fish and loaves JC had to keep them
satisfied. I was thinking to myself, thousands of kids come home crying
after starting at a new school. I´d packed my bags and began to move off.
´Joe!! I haven´t finished´, I was about to say well I´ve bloody finished,
but stopped myself.
´Do you know why she was upset?!´ I was about to explode and say how the
bloody hell would I know, but stopped myself again. ´Her mother´s very
upset´, I don´t need this, I´m not interested, I don´t care, get a life, I
said to myself. ´She´s very, very upset´, I can ignore her or I can ask
why, I ignore her comment. ´You know what´s happened?´ How the #@*& do I
know, I scream to myself. ´Her 10-year old sister said it happened to her
and she´ll have to get used to it´.
Stalemate, she wanted me to ask, I´m not going to ask. She leans closer;
she doesn´t want to let the woman know she´s betrayed her confidence. ´She
said she wanted to take her skin off and burn it´, I looked at her; she´d
finally caught my interest.
The little girl had been told by her classmates in one of Melbourne´s
´better´ suburbs that ´Black skin stinks and they don´t want her to sit next
to them´. I nodded, made a few reassuring noises, surprised at the
eloquence of the little girl´s statement. Anybody who believes a picture is
worth a thousand words needs to reflect on the power of her words. ´I want
to take my skin off and burn it´, ´They told me not to sit next to them
because black skin stinks´.

STOP PRESS
HERE WE GO ROUND
THE MULBERRY BUSH
The Sunday Age´s editorial ´The Parade Passes By (13/2)´, only tells half
the Moomba story. It´s ironic that 50 years after Moomba began, it now
faces the same fate that the Labor Day festival, Melbourne´s business
community usurped to usher in Moomba, faced in 1955. The Victorian public
holiday Labor Day, (currently Moomba Day), is directly linked to agitation
for the Eight Hour Day.
The inaugural committee for the Eight Hour day was formed in Melbourne in
1856. The original slogan ´Eight hours to work, eight hours to play, eight
hours to sleep and eight bob a day´ became the slogan for the Victorian
Trade Union movement for nearly a century.
The Eight Hour march from Melbourne´s Trade Hall to the Victorian Parliament
became an integral part of Melbourne´s life. By 1873, the Eight Hour march
had become the pivotal focus of Melbourne´s Trade Union movement. Every
year, thousands of Trade Unionists marched behind colourful union banners.
The Eight Hour movement reached its peak in the 1880´s and 1890´s.
Stimulated by the earlier successes of skilled workers, non skilled workers
took up the Eight Hour campaign. The Labor Day procession in March became
more colourful, marchers wore trade union lapels and tens of thousands of
people lined the route from Trade Hall to the Victorian Parliament to watch
the Trade Union movement flex its muscle.
The Labor Day procession became a victim of its own success as more and more
workers gained the Eight Hour Day participation, the traditional Labor Day
procession decreased. Melbourne´s business community, keen to promote their
own interests, successfully transformed Labor Day into a non-political
carnival. Since 1955, the Moomba festival has been haunted by the ghost of
the Eight Hour Day movement. The business men, who were behind the creation
of Moomba, keen to find an exotic name for their festival, approached an
Aboriginal Trade Unionist for some assistance. He, like many other
unionists, smarting at losing a tradition that the Labor movement had
enjoyed for 99 years, suggested they use the name MOOMBA (up your bum-not,
lets get together and have fun-although the two terms are not as some
people suggest, mutually exclusive) for their festival.
It´s ironic that 149 yeas after he first Eight Hour march, that the Eight
Hour Day is once again becoming an issue for many working people. The
slogan ´Eight hours to work, eight hours to play and eight hours to sleep´
is as relevant in 2005 as it was in 1856. In an era where the human and
social cost of people working longer and longer hours is becoming apparent,
it´s appropriate that Moomba have its last hoorah in 2005. It´s also
appropriate that the State government money, that continues to be pumped
into this anachronism, is redirected to Trades Hall to organise a procession
from Trades Hall to Parliament House to mark the 150th anniversary of Labor
Day in 2006.

Joseph TOSCANO / Libertarian Workers
For A Self-Managed Society.

AN ENDANGERED SPECIES
A number of groups now exist to preserve species whose very existence is
threatened & now we can add another to the list. I´m referring to the
Bottle Nosed Investigative Journalist. As they´re a nocturnal beast, little
is known of their courting & mating habits. The few who´ve witnessed these
events became so mentally unstable that they were forced to go into
Politics. It´s been said by Animal Psychologists that they adopt the policy
of Accept nothing, Question everything when chasing their prey. Examples of
this noble beast can be found on nature programs occasionally. ´We allow
this one to speak from time to time, but not often, as we don´t want to
terrify our audience with the truth.´
A subspecies also exists, a pathetic, subservient example who instead of
chasing its natural prey, is hand fed on press releases & is said to adopt
the policy of ´Accept everything, Question nothing´. This grovelling
example devoid of ethics, can be found on both commercial radio, TV & in
some newspapers. It´s sad to say that this animal is in plague proportions.
Both of these creatures are the natural prey of the horned Editor, a
ferocious beast who can be persuaded by various nefarious means to change
the prey it´s stalking from the subspecies to the main species, which is
said to be the reason that the subspecies is so numerous.
- EDWARD BROWN


ANARCHIST PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED SINCE LAST ISSUE
KATE SHARPLEY LIBRARY BULLETIN No.41, JAN ´05, bm Hurricane, London WCIN
3XX, ENGLAND, http://www.katesharpleylibrary.net
FREEDOM, Vol.66 No.2 22nd JAN ´05, Anarchist News View 84b Whitechapel High
St, LONDON E1 7Q, ENGLAND, TEL/FAX 020 7247 9249, http://www.freedompress.org.uk
TIERRA Y LIBERTAD No.198 WINTER 05, Periodico Anarquista, A Gonzalez,
Apartado 7056 de Madrid, 28080 Madrid SPAIN. tierraylibertad [at] nodo50.org
UMANITA NOVA Vol.85, No.2 23rdJan ´05, Settimenale Anarchico, C/-Federazione
Anarchico Torinese, C.50 Palermo 46, Torino, ITALY, tel/fx:011 857850,
Mobile:3386594361, email:fat [at] increte.it

OTHER ANARCHIST RECEIVED THIS WEEK
AN IRREGULAR GIPPSLAND PEACE NEWSLETTER No.7 Feb 05, Peter Gardner C/-PO
Swifts Creek 3896, Vic, AUSTRALIA. ngarak [at] bigpond.com
THE OTHER ISRAEL, No117/118 05, N/L of the Struggle for Israeli/Palestine
Peace, P.O. Box 2542, Holon 58125, ISRAEL. Tel/Fax 03 5565804,
email:otherisr [at] actcom.co.il

DEBT ELIMINATION APPEAL - Our debt stands at $863.20
OUR DEBT STANDS AT $863.20. Producing a weekly publication is an expensive
undertaking. As you can see, our debt is beginning to climb. In order to
keep the debt at a reasonable level & to publish weekly, we require readers
especially internet readers to subscribe to the AAWR. Currently snail mail
subscribers are cross subsidising internet readers. If you´ve got a little
bit of extra cash, think about joining the ´Dollar A Day´ club. When you
write to us pop in some 50cent stamps (every little bit helps). Subscription
rates for the AAWR are $1 per issue, $10 = 10 issues, $50 = 50 issues. We
rely on our subscribers to keep a record of when their subscription runs out
& resubscribe. Make out money orders and cheques to LIBERTARIAN WORKERS
P.O. BOX 20 PARKVILLE 3052, MELB AUST.
If you´re sending $20 or less, save on cheques & money orders & send us
50cent stamps.
Debt 16-02-2005 $863.20
The debt has decreased by $758.20 as a consequence of the successful trivial
pursuit night held on Saturday 12th February. THANKS TO ALL THOSE PEOPLE
(you know who you are) for making the night such a great success. Keep your
eyes on this page for the next ANARCHIST MEDIA INSTITUTE DEBT ELIMINATION
APPEAL TRIVIAL PURSUIT NIGHT IN FEBRUARY 2006.

ALL THE NEWS THAT FITS
US commandos are already operating in Iran & have been authorised by Pres
Bush to attack targets in up to 10 countries, acc to a new report. Seymour
Hersh, who exposed prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq in 04, wrote
in the New Yorker mag he´s repeatedly told by US intelligence & military
sources 'the next strategic target was Iran". Hersh wrote US commandos have
been operating inside Iran since mid-04, selecting suspected weapons sites
for possible air strikes. "This is a war against terrorism & Iraq is just 1
campaign," a ex high-level govt intelligence official told the mag. "The
Bush admin is looking at this as a huge war zone. Next, we're going to have
the Iranian campaign. We've declared war & the bad guys, wherever they are,
are the enemy," the official said. The US govt attacked the article, but
said nothing about Hersh's claim that Pres Bush has authorised US commandos
to conduct covert ops against suspected terrorist targets in as many as 10
nations in the Middle East & South Asia, incl Iran. Acc to The New Yorker,
secret spying missions have been going on inside Iran for at least 6 months
on declared & suspected nuclear, chemical & missile sites. The goal is to
"identify & isolate 3 dozen & perhaps more, such targets could be destroyed
by precision strikes & short-term commando raids," Hersh wrote. A top govt
consultant with close ties to the Pentagon told the mag that Pentagon
civilians, esp Sec of Defence Donald Rumsfeld & his deputy Paul Wolfowitz,
"want to go into Iran & destroy as much of the military infrastructure as
possible". Rumsfeld & Wolfowitz believed Iran's clerical regime couldn´t
withstand a military blow & would collapse, the mag reported. (Source: SMH)
A dehydrated kid who waited 4hrs for treatment in a country emergency dept
was among 21 people who died thru errors in Vic's public hospitals last
financial year. Acc to a report, inexperienced staff failed to accurately
monitor the deteriorating condition of the kid whose age & gender isn´t
known. The report said the busy emergency dept of the unnamed hospital had
no clear plans for the monitoring of young patients. The case is 1 of 85
significant med errors reported to the Dept of Human Services in 03-04 are
contained in the Sentinel Event Program report, obtained under FOI laws. The
report details med procedures on the wrong patient, procedures on the wrong
body part, medication errors, infection control breaches & cases in which
instruments or materials were left in patients after surgery. The other
deaths involved 10 mostly elderly people who died after falls (3 in
hospital-run residential aged-care facilities), 4 people given the wrong
drug or an incorrect drug dosage, 2 due to a catheter fatally damaging an
artery in the heart during routine surgery & 2 women dying during
childbirth. 2 patients - 1 had absconded - committed suicide. The number of
sentinel events - rare, clear-cut incidents can have a catastrophic outcome
for patients - was up slightly on the previous year, but it´s regarded by
experts as being only a fraction of the serious or deadly mistakes made by
hospital med staff. The figures don´t incl errors in private hospitals. The
report said 2 non-English-speaking patients not given access to an
interpreter had surgery on the wrong parts of their bodies. 1 had a cataract
op on the wrong eye, the other had an op to remove a skin cancer on the
wrong leg. 4 people died due to drug errors, incl 2 patients who were given
too much anticoagulant after heart surgery. 10 complications due to surgical
errors incl a case in which a patient's bowel was reconnected in the wrong
place. 6 complications due to anesthetic management incl a patient whose
lungs collapsed after equipment broke down before a brain op. Instruments or
gauze packs were left behind after 8 ops. In 1 case, surgeons sewed up a
woman after an emergency caesarean section despite a count that revealed one
gauze pack was missing. 2 people hurt in car accidents were further injured
when staff at country hospitals who were inexperienced in trauma cases
failed to detect spinal injury in the neck. (The Age)
Qlders are being stripped naked & searched by police at the rate of 1 an hr,
new official figures reveal. Grandmas, kids, pensioners & teenagers are
among 1,000´s of people being subjected to strip searches for crimes as
trivial as unpaid parking fines & train tickets. 9684 strip-searches were
carried out by Qld cops b/w June 1, 03 & June 30, 04 - 744 a month, or more
than 1 every hr. The figures have prompted claims cops use strip searches to
humiliate & intimidate people in custody. Qld Council of Civil Liberties VP
Terry O'Gorman said "police are obviously still abusing their strip search
powers." In a ´00 report following a major inquiry, the Criminal Justice
Commission recommended sweeping changes to police guidelines to end routine
strip searches. Gold Coast lawyer Bruce Simmonds said many searches were
unnecessary & used to humiliate & intimidate people. "Sometimes male police
get off on it & perv, so to speak, on the process. For some of them, it's a
power trip," he said. Grandma & pensioner Leonie Gosden, 49, is suing cops
after she was strip-searched over $230 in unpaid parking fines that were not
hers. Ms Gosden is 1 of at least 4 people who´ve complained about being
strip searched at Beenleigh watch house since 98. Others incl Lauren Lucas,
19, who´s ordered to "flash" her body, remove her underwear & squat after
being detained over an unpaid parking ticket. Brisbane mother Michelle
Rogerson, 39, was stripped when she went to pay a parking fine, while Bris
man Daniel Palmer complained when he was strip searched after being arrested
on warrants for another man & in 03 Helena Schmidt, of Ipswich, was awarded
almost $200,000 after she´s wrongly arrested then told to "waddle like a
duck" during a strip search. ( Sun Mail)
ATNTF weekly anarchist news report http://www.apolitical.info

ANARCHIST MEDIA INSTITUTE OBSCENITY OF THE WEEK
Awarded to all those Australians who required the illegal detention of an
Australian resident to realise that what´s happening in Australia´s
detention centres is wrong, cruel & inhumane. If only the same people had
realised that what happened to the Tampa refugees was wrong, cruel &
inhumane, maybe Australian governments wouldn´t be meting out the same
cruel, degrading & harsh treatment to asylum seekers & refugees in 2005

DOWNLOAD THE WEEKLY!!
Interested in the Anarchist Age Weekly Review? Want to get hold of your own
copy, then download it from http://anarchistmedia.org/weekly.html.
Email it your friends, it´s the cheapest and best birthday present you´ll
ever buy them. Go on, be a devil, spoil the day of all those people you
know who wield power in society and email them the Anarchist Age Weekly
Review.

DIRECT DEMOCRACY NOT PARLIAMENTARY RULE
Week EIGHT-47 members
503 TO GO!!
(The flood of completed application forms has slowed to a trickle)
Fill in that Application Form we recently sent to you and send it ASAP to
P.O. BOX 5035, ALPHINGTON 3078
If you haven´t an Application Form, download it from Web:
http://www.rulebythepeople.org
or write to us at P.O. BOX 5035, ALPHINGTON 3078 for a Application Form
ALREADY JOINED
Photocopy the spare copy you´ve received with your membership card and
distribute to your friends, workmates or set up a stall in the places you
live and work in. Whether Direct Democracy Not Parliamentary Rule becomes a
reality ultimately rests in your hands. Web: http://www.rulebythepeople.org
Email: supporters [at] rulebythepeople.org Tel: 0439 395 489
BUILD an alternative to the fossilised parliamentary system. Stop giving a
signed blank cheque to politicians to make decisions on you behalf.
JOIN: DIRECT DEMOCRACY NOT PARLIAMENTARY RULE
Written & Authorised by Dr. Joseph TOSCANO
Suite 4 / 2187 Princess Highway, Clayton 3168, Victoria, AUSTRALIA

AVAILABLE FOR TWENTY 50cent STAMPS
>From the Anarchist Media Institute
P.O. BOX 20, PARKVILLE, VICTORIA, AUSTRALIA.
Two pamphlets written by Dr. Joe Toscano
to mark the 150th anniversary of the Eureka rebellion.
** RECLAIMING THE RADICAL SPIRIT OF THE EUREKA REBELLION
** IT´S TIME FOR AN APOLOGY FROM THE VICTORIA POLICE FORCE FOR THEIR ROLE
IN THE EUREKA MASSACRE IN 1854.

EUREKA AUSTRALIA DAY MEDAL
Know someone who was born or lives in Australia who you believe should be
honoured for their efforts to create a better and fairer world.
Then nominate them for the
EUREKA AUSTRALIA DAY MEDAL
ON THE 3rd DECEMBER, THE ANARCHIST MEDIA INSTITUTE WILL BE HONOURING 20
PEOPLE WITH A EUREKA AUSTRALIA DAY MEDAL AT BAKERY HILL - BALLARAT
(The site where the Eureka Oath was taken 151 years ago)
WE NEED YOUR NOMINATIONS. Send them to:
EUREKA AUSTRALIA DAY MEDAL
P.O. BOX 5035, ALPHINGTON 3078, VICTORIA, AUSTRALIA.
Or Email your nomination to: anarchistage [at] yahoo.com
Tell us why you´ve nominated that person and send us your contact details so
we can contact you in case we need further information about your chioices.

***** ´150th ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATIONS´ *****
To mark the 150th anniversary of the acquittal of John Joseph, the 1st of
the 13 miners who were tried for High Treason for their participation in the
Eureka rebellion.
JOIN THE ANARCHIST MEDIA INSTITUTE
MIDDAY - TUESDAY 22ND FEBRUARY 2005
Outside VICTORIAN SUPREME COURT
210 William Street, Melbourne, VICTORIA
to mark this highpoint in Australian radical history. Reclaim the Radical
Spirit of the Eureka Rebellion & use that spirit to transform the present.
JOIN US TO LAUNCH
THE EUREKA-AUSTRALIA DAY MEDAL
A medal which will be awarded at Bakery Hill on the 3rd December each year
to acknowledge the achievements of 20 people who are living or who were born
in Australia who have contributed to the struggle to make Australia a better
place.
JOIN US MIDDAY TUESDAY 22ND FEBRUARY 2005
Outside VICTORIAN SUPREME COURT
210 William Street, Melbourne, VICTORIA

DEATH DISCO II: DISCO HARDER
Saturday February 26th-A day that will in infamyŠ..
It´s just about exactly bootylicious for ya. Featuring the smooth* sounds
of Pisschrist, Molotov Cocktail Party & Steve Towson (QLD), to name but most
of them. Plus DJ´s regurgitating the dark side of 80´s
293 LYGON STREET, BRUNSWICK.
All ages. $5.00 on the door. Bands from 7.30-11, DJs from 11-late.
Death Disco 2 is a fundraiser for the 2005 Australian Anarchist Conference
http://2005.anarcon.org * May not be all true.

5TH ANNUAL AUSTRALIAN ANARCHIST CONFERENCE
26TH - 27TH FEBRUARY 2005
CERES Environment Park-Lee Street, Brunswick East, Melbourne
** Free entry, includes lunch both days, ** free childcare available
http://2005.anarcon.org

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 reflect the personal
opinions of the authors, they do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the
publishers, the Libertarian Workers for a Self-Managed Society/Anarchist
Media Institute.
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.

ANARCHISM-ADVANCING IN DIVERSITY STRIKING IN UNISON-YAMAGUCHI KENJI
WELCOME TO THE 21ST CENTURY-THE ANARCHIST CENTURY


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