Ya Basta from australia.
Matthew X
profrv at nex.net.au
Wed Sep 4 23:44:23 PDT 2002
NO MORE!! The continuing death of thousands of animals as a result of the
live sheep and cattle trade, is an indictment on a barbaric practice that
caters to religious traditions that evolved in another millennium. To
subject animals to the suffering, that long cramped trips across the ocean
causes, is not justifiable on any grounds, let alone religious grounds. To
pander to these religious observances, is an indictment on both those who
provide the animals for live export, and those who demand that the animals
are not slaughtered in Australia. There is not one reason that can justify
this cruel export industry. Animals can and are slaughtered in Australia
under strict Halal conditions. Slaughterhouses are built that face Mecca
and slaughter men can and do kill animals in the prescribed manner in
Australia, to suit the religious demands of those people who follow the
Muslim faith. To pander to those who demand live animals, is unjust, cruel,
barbaric and cannot be justified, irrespective of the profits this trade
generates. A halt should be placed on the trade today. The RSPCA should
unilaterally remove its support for this disgusting trade. All those
corporations who are making money as a result of this trade should be
subjected to a consumer boycott today. Everybody involved in the trade,
from the farmers, to the transport companies, to the shipping concerns,
should be identified. Anybody who is involved in any aspect of this
unnecessary trade, should be the focus of a community organised consumer
boycott. The sooner shareholders and individual owners of these
corporations, realise that their participation in this trade will erode
their bottom line, the sooner this cruel business will be stopped. RIGHT
ROYAL SKULLDUGGERY Last weekend marked the fifth anniversary in what can be
described as the House of Windsor's luckiest break - the death in a car
accident in Paris, of Diana Spencer, a woman who had long ago outlived her
usefulness to the British Royal family. It's interesting to note that the
House of Windsor has not held any Public event to mark the fifth
anniversary of the death of the future monarch's mother. Basking in the
glory of her Golden Jubilee celebrations, the last thing Queen Elizabeth
II, the Queen of Australia would want, is a public rival for the affection
of her loyal subjects. Diana Spencer's untimely death, and the public
grieving which accompanied her death, shocked the House of Windsor to its
foundations. The outpouring of public grief was in a large part an
indication of the public's disquiet about how a 19 year old woman had been
treated by the British Royal Family, after she had done her duty and
delivered the heirs that the British Royal Family desperately needed, to
keep the legion of members of the House of Windsor on the public payroll.
If Diana Spencer had lived, she could have dimmed the star of Her Right
Royal Highness, Queen Elizabeth The Second. No wonder the retinue of media
spin doctors that are paid by the public purse who work for the House of
Windsor, have worked overtime, to smooth the feathers of a pliant media
that has been blinded to the small-mindedness, bigotry and downright
jealousy displayed by the British Royal Family by the Jubilee celebrations.
The only good thing about the fifth anniversary of Diana Spencer's death is
that people have not forgotten the myopic self-serving behaviour of the
British Royal Family. A group, that to the last man and woman, has shown,
and continues to show a callous disregard for their tawdry role, in the sad
life of a woman who long before her sudden unexpected death, had outlived
her usefulness to the British Monarchy. ANARCHIST QUESTION AND ANSWER Q.
What role would euthanasia play in an anarchist society? A. The right to a
gentle and painless death euthanasia is a right that¹s inherent within a
society that recognises that the individual has the ultimate right over
their own life and death. As far as terminal illnesses and illnesses that
are accompanied by unremitting pain that cannot be treated, the decision is
very simple. Euthanasia becomes a debating point within an anarchist
society if community expectations about euthanasia push people in
particular situations to consider ending their own lives. Individuals with
terminal and chronic illnesses have first and foremost the right to demand
support from society. Any discussion about euthanasia must originate from
the person concerned, not from society. In a society where euthanasia is a
right, it¹s possible that an expectation could arise that if an individual
has a terminal or chronic illness they should consider euthanasia so they
are not a burden on society. The development of community expectations
about who should or shouldn¹t end their own life can and will pressure
people into making decisions they may not want to make, so they are not a
burden on the community. The other problem that faces a community where
euthanasia is an inherent part of that community is do people who don¹t
have a terminal or chronic illness have the right to euthanasia. The two
age groups within a community that commit suicide are normally the young
and the old. Suicide is often linked to a psychiatric disorder. Should
people with a psychiatric disorder have the right to choose death over
life? There seems to be a double standard among some anarchists about
psychical and psychiatric illnesses. Some anarchists think psychiatric
illnesses are illnesses that don¹t need to be treated. My experience is
that once anarchists are confronted with friends or associates who develop
psychiatric illnesses, they¹re keen to use what treatments are available to
help resolve the problem. The problem of psychiatric illness raises
important questions about who has and hasn¹t the right to demand euthanasia
in an anarchist society. Most people who attempt to commit suicide with
psychiatric illnesses and are treated and survive, lead long and productive
lives. As up to one in five persons in any community considers suicide as a
way out of a difficult emotional situation, should all these people have
access to a peaceful and painful death? What at first seemed a very simple
proposal, let the individual decide, is in reality a very difficult
concept. Euthanasia, like every other human decision, is much more
difficult than it at first seems. My own belief is that people who have
chronic and debilitating illnesses or terminal illnesses who are not
suffering depression or a psychiatric illness and those individuals who
have psychiatric illnesses that do not respond to treatment who want to end
their own lives, should have access to euthanasia. Euthanasia should be a
choice that should be exercised only by those individuals who have the
intellectual, emotional and psychological capacity to make that choice.
Anything else would be community sanctioned murder. ACTION BOX "CELEBRATING
OUR VICTORIES" How may times have you been involved in a successful
struggle and been surprised at how your contribution to that struggle has
been ignored or downplayed? I think more times than you care to remember.
I¹ve been amazed at how many times the very people in authority who have
lost a struggle attempt to claim credit for the outcome. We¹re told that
"they never intended to carry out their proposal" or that what we are
witnessing "is democracy in action." It¹s just as important we celebrate
our victories than it is to learn from our losses. It¹s important we claim
our victories publicly. Every time we claim and celebrate our victories, we
destroy the idea that "you can¹t fight city hall". Every time we achieve
our aims we give hope and courage to other people who are involved in
local, regional, national and international struggles. Every time we allow
the very institutions we fought against to claim victory, we are doing
ourselves and everybody who is involved in struggles, a disservice. Don¹t
be bashful about blowing your own trumpet, if you don¹t do it, nobody else
will. As we all know, success breeds success. Victory in one struggle can
give impetus to another struggle. Knowing that the institutions,
bureaucracies and corporations that we are challenging can be confronted
and defeated, has a positive effect on other people involved in disputes
and campaigns against authority. It¹s important we try to build on the
success we have had and continue to have. Recording how a particular
victory was achieved can help other groups who are involved or who want to
become involved in other struggles. The energy that¹s generated from
celebrating a victory helps to recharge people¹s batteries for the next
struggle. Always inform the media about your success. The more people who
know that you took on "city hall" and won, the greater the reputation of
the group you¹re involved in, will grow. More importantly, the destruction
of the myth that the government or a major corporation is invincible,
places government and corporations under increasing pressure from people
and organisations that are struggling or want to become involved in the
struggle for both reform and radical social change. AUSTRALIAN RADICAL
HISTORY THE EUREKA SERIES NO. 31 "TURNING THE TABLES" The acquittal of the
13 defendants charged with High Treason, turned the tables on Hotham and
his scurvy crew. Although Hotham took the blame for the judicial farce, the
Attorney-General William Stawell was ultimately responsible for this whole
sorry saga. While men and women who were involved in the Eureka stockade
are largely forgotten, a Victorian regional town Stawell¹ still bears the
Attorney-General¹s name and Australia¹s most prestigious and well know
professional footrace "The Stawell Gift", honours the memory of the man who
engineered the butchery which occurred at Ballarat on December the 3rd
1854. Stawell not only goaded the diggers into taking up arms and organised
the military response, he was also responsible for attempting to pervert
"the course of justice" by manipulating the jury system and by encouraging
the virtual army of spies he had working for his department, to perjure
themselves at the trials of the 13 accused. Hotham paid the ultimate price
for his rigidity and his role in the Eureka rebellion. Lord John Russell
from the London Colonial Office, scolded Hotham for not following his
advice and charging the 13 with High Treason. The London Colonial Office
did not believe a local jury would convict the men of the charge. Broken in
health, Hotham had been forced by November 1855 to send his resignation to
the Colonial Office. Hotham died on the 31st December 1855 as a result of a
"chill", some say a "broken heart". The Legislative Council was asked by
John Pascoe Fawkner, one of Melbourne¹s founders, to set aside a thousand
pounds (a colossal sum in 1856) to build a monument to Sir Charles Hotham.
Peter Lalor the Eureka stockade leader, had been elected to the Legislative
Council, opposed the motion stating that "Hotham had a sufficient monument
in the graves of those slain at Ballarat". The motion was passed and a
thousand pounds was set aside to build a monument in Hotham¹s memory.
Recommended Reading:- MASSACRE AT EUREKA The Untold Story - Bob O¹Brien
1992 - Sovereign Hill Museums Association Edition 1998 ISBN 0909874190
(176 pages), EUREKA John Molony 1984 Melbourne University Press Edition
2001 ISBN 0522849628. Both these books are available or can be ordered
through your local bookshop. They can also be loaned from your local
library. BOOK REVIEW "LOOKING BACK AFTER TWENTY YEARS OF JAIL!" Questions
and Answers on the Spanish Anarchist Resistance. - Miguel GARCIA, Kate
Sharpley Library 2002, 1ST Published by Simion circa 1970. ISBN 187360503X
"Dar la vida par la vida (Give a life for life) Miguel Garcia Garcia
(1908-1981) The Kate Sharpley Library collective has done the anarchist
world a favour by publishing this 16 page "memorial booklet" which examines
the life of Miguel GARCIA. One of the best kept secrets in both the
anarchist and non anarchist world is the anarchist resistance to France¹s
dictatorial rule after the failure of the Spanish revolution in 1939. "He
was, as he himself ruefully admitted, the embodiment of a lost history of
anarchism part of a resistance movement, even now little know or
understood by many". Miguel Garcia was a fighter in Barcelona during the
July days of 1936, he fought on the Aragon Front and outside Madrid with
the anarchist militias. After the failure of the Spanish revolution, Garcia
who had been trained by the British as a forger, helped to smuggle refugees
from France back to Spain. He was arrested in Spain by French soldiers in
1949, Miguel was initially sentenced to death but his sentence was commuted
to 30 years imprisonment, he was released in 1969 and immigrated to England
at the invitation of Stuart Christie. Miguel Garcia spent the rest of his
life working tirelessly to help imprisoned militants. Garcia was the
International Secretary of the newly reformed Anarchist Black Cross, an
anarchist prisoner aide organisation. Kate Sharpley¹s "memorial booklet" on
Miguel Garcia includes an interview with Garcia first published by Simion
Press in the early 1970¹s and a series of previously unpublished letters
sent to London newspapers and journals. The interview gives an all too
brief insight into how the resistance against the Franco regime was
organised and the type of activities they were involved in before Franco¹s
death. The interview "explains the motivation and methods of the
resistance". Miguel Garcia¹s story opens the page on the libertarian
resistance in Franco¹s Spain, an era that was dismissed by liberals, the
international media and governments as work of "terrorists". "But to the
world, the Resistance had become criminals, for Franco made the laws, even
if, when dealing with political opponents he chose to break the laws
established by the constitution; and the world still regards us as
criminals" Miguel GARCIA Other books available from the Kate Sharpley
Library on the libertarian resistance in Franco¹s Spain include: Miguel
Garcia¹s Story Miguel Garcia Memorial Committee / Genfuegos Press 1982,
Antonio Tellez The Anarchist Resistance to Franco 1996, Antonio Tellez
Sebate, Guerilla Extraordinary 1998, Kate Sharpey Library, BM Hurricane,
LONDON WCIN 3XX, UNITED KINGDOM, www.katesharpleylibrary.org. Thanks to
Kate Sharpley Library for the Review Copy of "Looking Back After Twenty
years in Jail" Miguel GARCIA. PERSONAL OBSERVATION It¹s interesting how
technological innovations can change how we think, what we do and the very
perception of what is considered to be normal behaviour. The single most
important personal technological innovation that has had a profound impact
in both the industrial world and the non industrialised world in the last
decade has been the mobile phone. The minimal infrastructure that¹s
required to set up a mobile network has allowed the East Timorese to
overcome the devastation caused by the Indonesian Army and Indonesian
backed militias much more quickly than was expected. Mobile phones have
changed the way we communicate with each other, both at a personal and
business level. It¹s also become a very important tool in that it helps
activists conduct demonstrations, occupations and even revolutions. It
allows participants to communicate with each other in real time and vary
strategies used to meet real time needs. I¹m not denying that there are
problems, privacy, auditory pollution and the risk of developing brain
tumors are a few of the problems associated with mobile phone users.
Interestingly the mobile phone¹s greatest contribution to life has little
to do with communication and everything to do with perception. The mobile
phone has changed the way we view human behaviour. If ten years ago you
were walking down the street and began talking to yourself, you¹d have been
given a wide berth. Today it¹s normal, on any day at anytime people are
spilling their guts anywhere and everywhere. We¹ve regaled with the most
intimate details of people¹s lives. Inadvertently we become unwilling
spectators in a game that draws complete strangers in our orbit. I remember
one day some time ago, some fool was blurbering into thin air with his
estranged girlfriend, everybody around him broke into spontaneous applause
when she told him to grow up and get a life. He became indigent when he
realised that he had made his private life into a tedious and boring public
spectacle. There¹s nothing worse than being forced to listen to other
people¹s problems. Driving, it is common to see some idiot jabbering into
the ether, laughing and carrying on all by themselves. Less than a decade
ago such behaviour would have been rewarded with a visit by smiling folk
dressed in white carrying straight jackets, today it¹s seen as normal. Ten
years down the track, I will still find it a little disconcerting to see
people talking to themselves on the streets, in cars and everywhere I go.
STOP PRESS REALLY? Two years after I began writing in the Anarchist Age
Weekly Review that the Federal government was intent on destroying bulk
billing, the corporate and State run media have begun to respond to the
threat. As more and more general practices begin to feel the current harsh
commercial reality, many are beginning to abandon bulk billing. Medicare
was introduced in 1972 by the Whitlam Labor government to ensure that every
Australian, irrespective of income, had access to medical care outside of a
public hospital setting. Bulk billing was welcomed by the more community
minded elements of the medical profession as well as the general public,
especially people with large families, those on social security benefits
and working people on limited incomes. For the first time in the history of
this country, they had access to affordable medical care. Over the past
decade, the Howard government has gone out of its way to undermine the
public hospital sector and destroy bulk billing. They have diverted three
billion dollars that should have gone to the public hospital system to the
private health insurance industry. They have also squeezed general
practitioners by not keeping the medicare rebate in line with inflation. As
cuts escalate, general practitioners have been forced to selectively bulk
bill and in some cases abandon billing completely. Those who suffer are not
those who can afford private health insurance or those who can pay the gap
between the medicare rebate and the new fees charged by general
practitioners. They are the poor, working people, the disadvantaged and
people on social security benefits, the very people the medicare system was
established to help. Increasing gaps between the medicare rebate and the
cost of using general practitioners are driving people to use overcrowded
public hospital Accident and Emergency departments as their port of call.
The swamping of Accident and Emergency departments by non urgent cases has
profound negative implications for a public hospital sector that is already
struggling to cope. General practitioners and the people they service have
been asked to bear the brunt of the government¹s attack on the medicare
system and bulk billing. They will not be able to withstand this onslaught
unless individuals, organisations and local health authorities and State
governments put pressure on the Howard government to adequately fund
medicare. Until Australians become involved in campaigns to defend and
extend medicare and bulk billing, the horror stories about the health care
system that have become an everyday news item will continue to occur with
increasing frequency. Joseph TOSCANO/LibertarianWorkers for a Self-Managed
Society.
http://www.ainfos.ca/ainfos12867.html
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