To err is human, to hate divine?

Well, it seems that this anarchist has pissed off some rather unsavoury licorice all sorts.

A newly popped up blog designed presumably for no other reason than to expunge their hatred of what they consider to be an invalid form of anarchism, has the audacity to state that free speech does not include hate speech, whilst at the same time describing me as an uneducated buffoon incapable of stringing a sentence together. Hypocrisy anyone?

But then, I suppose free speech doesn't become hate speech when you disagree with the other person and believe yourself to have the moral high ground?! Right guys. I couldn't care less what you call me, but the fact is, you've offended me, and by your definition, that's hate speech and it's oppressive. So either you lot aren't anarchists, or you agree with me, and hate speech does in fact include the RIGHT to offend another human being.

Further to their accusations that I am not a true anarchist, they request any personal information about me to be sent to someone I believed to be a true Anarchist and comrade (with whom I did not necessary agree with on everything, but supported on my blog anyway), @ndy, or Slack Bastard.

You accuse me of hate speech (whichby your definition) is coercive and removes the freedom of others, and yet at the same time, you request my personal information so that you may take away my privacy. Something, which I believe is totally unethical and un-anarchist in nature. A behaviour, which I would expect the State to engage in, not fellow political activists.

Perhaps that is my punishment for such thought crimes and thinking outside the square?

As for the rumours of my location - sure, I'm in Melbourne, I've been to protests in Melbourne, which have been documented on my blog. I haven't been to a climate change one, and had I, you can be sure I would have posted pics and a report accordingly. Shit happens, and I haven't kept up my blog for yonks. I haven't done any political activism, or even been posting regularly on the blog. Work's been HELL!

Am I at La Trobe? I sure was. I even ran in the elections, and I've even had some stuff published from the blog in the La Trobe magazine. The great thing about La Trobe (not just that it's an activist hub in Melbourne), but it's also got free internet access. If you're an anarchist, or just on the cheap, the library offers free internet, and no need for a student login. So head on over, I'm a cheap skate, they're open till 10pm on weeknights!

As for me being called a woman... well, I've been called worse :-)

So please, slander me with your hate speech all you want, but don't turn around and hypocritically tell a Neo Nazi that they are bigoted, hate filled people. At least a Nazi admits what they are.

State Claims Ownership of Newborn DNA

God Bless America!
Unknown to most new parents, or those who became parents in the last ten or so years, DNA of newborns has been harvested, tested, stored and experimented with. All 50 states are now routinely providing these results to the Homeland Security Department. Excellent!

If you recall the movie Gattaca, embryos were created and screened to provide the ultimate eugenics program and the "super" human. Some refused to take part in this process and had "God" children, children who were made through normal conception. These children invariably didn't have the same superior genome compared to GMO children, and were thus forced into unwanted societal roles like cleaning and garbage disposal.

In Minnesota the state tests for 56 various genetic disorders and variants. At least 1/3 of these tests produce a false positive meaning that a flaw was identified that actually did not exist. Regardless, the false positive becomes part of the permanent record of the child and follows them for the rest of their lives as does any true positives. This means that the child may face discrimination in employment and the ability to gain health insurance at any cost.

Should we really be complaining? I mean, after all it's not required by law, you can opt out of the pogram, that is, if you knew about it in the first place.

Our legislators declared that if the parent doesn’t specifically opt out, they are presumed to have “informed consent” and have opted in.

So what are the long term implicaions of this?

The implications of the DNA database need to be viewed in conjuction with the Real ID Act in the US, and the requirement by Americans to carry around National Identity Cards. Combine the identity card with your DNA, and you've got yourself a highly controlled Statist system. I hear people saying? So, thats ok, if you're not doing anything wrong? Others look forward to a technocractic Utopia where everything you do will be based on your DNA, from your ATM card, your health insurance, driving your car, the locks on your house, all of which could be DNA specific.

It's all just a little bit Big Brother (1984) and This Perfect Day for my liking.

Read the full article by Marti Oakley

Read about RFID chips and the Real ID act here and here and here.

Practical Revolutionary Economics - Part II

(Following on from the previous post The Economics of Revolution, we now have the concluding part II, with acknowledgements to Royce Christian for his assistance).

Undergound currency or counter economics is a non-violent means to undermine capitalism. The term was originally coined by Samuel Edward Konkin, who defined it as

"the the study and/or practice of all peaceful human action which is forbidden by the State".

The main reasons I suggested we encorporate counter economics in our daily lives was for the following;

Reduces demand on currency by providing an alternative (reduces inflation, consumption)

Ensures a social infrastructure capable of autonomous function with redundancy protection from State failure.

Companies
While not a true anarchist example, I personally believe that a simple way to give back to employees is to engage them in the business through shares. Instead of privatising the company where shares are sold on the market, employees are given shares in the company. Unlike normal shares these cannot be privately sold and are retained only while the person is in employment with the company. Call them an employee bonus scheme or something, where the business profits go back into those who worked hard for the business profits in the first place.

This method has two functions. Firstly, it redistributes the earnings of the business (not neccisarily in a socialist manner, rather contribution means tested). Secondly, the employees feel better about themselves and their jobs knowing that they are working not just for a nameless facless company, but also their own livelihood. I think it makes people more proud of their work. Finally, instead of there being a direct contradiction between an employee and the shareholders (people being laid off because of reduced profits), there is no contradiction between the two. The shareholders are the employees who retain stocks only while they are in employment with the company, and are returned to the company on the employees departure. It's private ownership, so it's not anarchist per se, but it's not capitalist either.

Barter or Trade

I rememer years ago family and friends decided to clean out their wardrobe of their old clothes and shoes. I don't generally like giving to charity because of the lack of control once you hand over your money or your items to their final location. Instead we put all the clothes in a bag and they went around the group. When the bag eventually came back to you, anything of yours still in there was removed and given to charity or thrown out. Instead of doing this with just clothes, why not do it with all sorts of items? If you don't want to setup your own group, you can use Freecycle instead.

I have also heard cases of tradesmen swapping their trades for mutual benefit. This is especially true in country towns. Generally alcohol is used a counter currency, otherwise, straight out bater is done, where a plumber will do a bathroom in exchange for electrical re-wiring. The funny thing is about these sorts of trades is people place more emphasis on quality and professionalism because instead of trading money, they trade their name and reputation.

Alternative Currency

I remember when I was younger my mother belonged to this baby-sitting group. They didn't pay each other, instead they had these cut up pieces of laminate flooring (weired I know). The would exchange one piece of this laminate flooring for every hour that they baby-sat. No money exchanged, and no tit for tat with a large group involved. If you only have one or two people, the onus is that if you do 5 hours of babysitting, you expect the other person to do 5 hours. With the laminate flooring system, you didn't have to do baby-sitting for the person who did it for you. It was a great system, unusual, but it worked.

Alternative currencies available on the market include liberty dollars, Pheonix dollars, Ithaca Hours and digital gold currency like e-gold. These alternative currencies are denominated by weight and backed by a commodity (unlike the U.S or AUS $). Thus, these currencies are designed to be absolutely free of any financial risk. (I.e. assume something happens to the Australian economy and it goes bust, having your money backed by gold means you have little to worry about). There is also no debt or contingent liabilities associated with these systems. However, "the use of these gold and silver NORFED "Liberty Dollar" medallions as circulating money is a Federal crime in the US". Oh well, you've been warned.

Before anyone decides to swap all their cash for e-gold, just remember "Caveat Emptor" Buyer Beware as it has been suggested that some of these guys only say they have gold backed dollars, in reality it could just be a virtual currency.

Establishing the Neighbourhood

Growing your own fruits or vegetables can be a great way to get to know the neighbours. We've all seen the lemon tree in the font yard, and we've all gone and asked nicely for a few lemons. I read in the paper a while back about a Reverend who grew tomatoes next to his picket fence that people would help themselves to. He said he didn't mind because that was the whole idea. While probably not cost effective monetarily speaking, there is no value on the forging of relationships with those around you. This is social infrastructure.

Another thing you have to remember about counter economics, is that not everyone has to be an anarchist to participate, you will find people are likely to participate because it benefits them, unwittingly contributing to the free-market, making it stronger. So go out there and get involved, and if you have any ideas to add to this, or any feedback send us an email at anarchistalex@yahoo.com

Is it possible to be an Anarchist in an Authoritarian world?

Having, as I have, a long and heavy past of political idealism it’s easy to notice that, each year – or even each day, it’s becoming harder and harder to remain truly an Anarchist without drawing negative attention to oneself. Given that the Anarchist creed implicates that we stand up for freedom of speech, a freedom that is ever more threatened by either restrictive laws pushed by national governments or by Bruxels regime (1), or even due to the ideological obscurantism that painted our world in Black and White, divided in “good” and “evil”, resulting that true Anarchists – those that stand up for absolute freedom of speech and opinion for all – end up being accused sometimes as “fascists” and others as “communists”, depending on the political guidelines (the artificial Right/Left) of those that disagree with your point of view.

Given the Portuguese example, we have ever more governmental decisions that are taken without the approval of the people (most recent cases being Flexi security and the European Treaty). We have a regulating governmental entity that rules over the press – something that does not seen all that democratic. In the colleges, political parties youth wings and in the opinion columns of the newspapers we witness what Joaquim Letria (2) labeled as “self censorship”, when people restrain themselves to voice publicly certain opinions that might look bad or raise a cloud of negative suspicion over its authors by their professors, editors or even some parcel of the public that might be organized as a lobby.

To continue reading the Article by Flavio Goncalves click here

A similar story at The Gerilla Capitalist.

Shun the Non Believers

Red Anarchists, as has been stated, have a tendency to shun everyone who does not subscribe to their particular brand of Anarchism. Their street level activism is highly important to the movement as a whole and should not be forgotten nor overlooked. This is their strength and the strength and a huge force for the Anarchist movement as a whole. The same applies to Anarcho-Capitalists within their own sphere of influence. Though they may not be working the streets to the extent of Red Anarchists, or other older brands of Anarchism, it is undeniable that they work hard to deal with and rebuff statists at the intellectual level on a regular basis. I would hope Red Anarchists can accept this and congratulate Anarcho-Capitalists for their work. Both sides excel at the others weakness, with the opposite being true for their strengths. This should not be forgotten.

To continue reading the Article by Royce Christian click here

Google; Don't be evil

Googles censorship of the Internet through its biased search engine pagerank is undemocratic, but did we really expect any differently?

Google is well known for its censorship in China, which seems to contradict the very principles that Google - whose unofficial motto "don’t be evil" - was founded upon. The "don't be evil" principle, recognises that Google holds great power over the information the public relies on, and their fiduciary duty to uphold the public trust by refusing payments that would influence the information they provide to users.

Until January 2006, Google's Support Centre claimed that it "does not censor results for any search term", but removed this claim after reaching its deal with China. Which just goes to show that Google uses the "don't be evil" principle as a propaganda campaign to convince the masses that they aren't an evil malevolent corporation. However, there is evidence prior to the Chinese censorship 2006, which can be found in Europe.

On October 22, 2002, a study reported that approximately 113 Internet sites had been removed from the German and French versions of Google, who were complying with local laws by not including sites containing certain material in its search results.

In Australia on September 20, 2007 at 9:58am, the Australian Government tabled new legislation where ISPs will be required to "take reasonable steps" to prevent users accessing websites or content, by expanding the URL "black list".

The laws will, can and do extend to Google and their operation in Australia.

Googles search engine works using a "PageRank" system, wherby the more links to a website the higher it is ranked. This is undemocratic because the E-commerce people have recognized the direct correlation between high rank of their site, and more sales. Google also has a spider system that scoures the internet to add new web sites to its search criterea. However, deletion of critical sites from Google search results is decided by individual human beings according to company policy. Effectively google will target its search results based on the originating computer IP, making the results region specific.

You will notice when "googling" in Australia, the search engine automatically registers google.com.au after hitting the search button. I found that after using google without a proxy server, NO result came upon this blog, however, after going through a U.S proxy, I was able top the list for anarchy down under. Here are the images:

Image 1: "Anarchy down under" not on any search page through Australian IP address

Image 2: "Anarchy Down under" top of list using proxy through U.S IP address

The following is taken from a Google Censorship FAQ:
Is Google transparent about their censorship?Google discloses what they censor when you hit on a specific search result (they didn’t always do this, but they regularly do since 2006). However, Google Inc does not respond to questions regarding how specifically they censor, how the process of censorship is implemented, which blacklists they use , which words are censored, which specific discussions they have with governments, and so on. Additionally, making censorship more transparent helps defeat its original purpose of hiding information, so it gives less incentive to governments to try impose such censorship regulations.

And there it is. Google uses blacklists and their search engines are region specific.

One way to get around this pagerank system and any of their blacklisting is to manually go and add your blog to as many directories as possible. The directories themselves cannot be blacklisted, thus, by adding your URL with enough tags (description), they will appear under a google search engine, regardless of regional filters.

Image 3: after adding this blog to the following directories:

Technorati, Bloggernity, Bloghub, Blog Rankings and Blogarama.

References:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don

http://www.anonproxy.ca/index.php?q=aHR0cDovL3d3dy5hdXN0cmFsaWFuaXQubmV3cy5jb20uYXUvc3RvcnkvMCwyNDg5NywyMjQ1MTUyMi0xNTMwNiwwMC5odG1s

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_by_Google
http://web.amnesty.org/pages/internet-110506-action-eng http://sethf.com/infothought/log/archives/001027.html

http://www.google-watch.org/

Practial Anarchy - Work Choices

Language is a potent weapon for legitimizing any political system, and in the west a level of communication has been reached which avoids confrontational discourse and resorts to words devoid of substantive meaning.

In Melbourne on September 26, 2007, the trade unionists marched against John Howard's "Work Choices" legislation. It reminds me of the term "Newspeak" from George Orwell's 1984, or as i like to call it, the euphemism treadmill. I find liberal "double-talk" to be a fascinating thing, in its ability to subvert the thinking of the cattle class. Call the new legislation "Work Choices" and it sounds like it has a positive spin, when in reality has very little in the way of choice. Tell that to a 15 year old apprentice who's signed a work contract for less than $20 an hour "all in" (less I'm told). Of course, the workchoices advertising will tell you that a 15 year old can only sign an agreement if they have a parent/guardian present. What if the adult has no capacity to bargain? Should we rely on the goodwill of an employer to abide by their fiduciary duty? The capitalist system is designed for the interests of the self-centred, and at these rallies, it's pretty obvious that the message is "Howard out, NOW!" and that all unionist problems have come about because of Liberal party politics. Let me assure all of you, a Labour Government will make no difference. We do not have a democracy here in this country, we have Corporate Governance. You should have noticed ads on TV saying "lets keep workchoices", these advertisements ARE NOT by the Liberal Government, but rather from business lobby groups. These lobby groups are powerful vested interest groups, whose sole mission is in maintaining the status quo. So much so, that the Government has changed legislation to include protests, where the only legal protest is over pay disputes, and therefore for a wage increase. Subsequently, the protest today over Workchoices legislation is considered illeagal. According to The Age 30,000 protestors were expected, however, the threat of individual fines of $6,600 would be issued against employees and $33,000 for unions if they went.

Thirty construction union members from Austral Bricks site in Craigiburn voted reluctantly yesterday to work as usual after they were told the company planned to call the Australian Building and Construction Commission to seek fines against individual workers.

Make no mistake, even if Kevin Rudd does get into power (and put all bets aside, Howard will get back in), these business lobby groups would never allow the removal of concessions granted to them, like the ability to sack workers for no legitimate reason (so long as you have no more than 100 employees). No, I'm afraid our hope for change through reform by Kevin Rudd will only lead us down the path of disappointment, after all, he admits to being an economic conservative, has already stated that "some" of the workchoices will stay, and then of course there is his wife's conflict of interest with her multimillion dollar business, supplying casual workers to the Government. Hmmm. I'm afraid that unions are misguided if they believe that Labor will have any real or lasting impact on their job security. Taking my job as the harbinger seriously, it's important to inform you that the opportunity for reform has passed, and I would like to leave you with one last thought.

The Culture of the Organisation

Organisational culture is the personality of the organisation, comprised of the assumptions, values, norms and artifacts of organisation members and their behaviors.

Members of an organisation soon come to sense the particular culture of an organisation, and will adapt their personality to fit, ergo loosing their career momentum. This is evidenced through the status of the employee to clique groups, whether or not they participate and engage in extra-curricular activities, and their willingness to put the organisation as their first priority. I have noticed that in many work places the world is reduced to the microcosm of the organisations existence, and these clique groups spend significant amounts of their private lives interacting with one another, either with sporting teams, binge drinking and the like. This is encouraged by the organisation, as the organisation provides each employee with all they need. Why would you have relationships with humans outside of your workplace? which tends to remind me of Orwell's "1984". All relationships are fashioned by Big Brother FOR Big Brother.

Extra-curricular activities in particular are designed to bring about a sense of community within each organisation, and often take the form of conferences, picnics and group bonding exercises. These events are compulsory to attend, and failure to do so labels someone "not a team player". So, these large multi-national organisations force their already poorly paid employees to sacrifice their private hours in the name of organisational harmony, which is nothing more than forced assimilation, and in practice a communist fiefdom.

With the rise of the large multi-national and the development of "organisational culture", there seems to be little need or tolerance for culture outside of the organisation. Already we can see the signs of cultural decay, which is evidenced in Western countries already. Travel to any big city in Australia and they all appear the same, the same McDonald's, the same Coles, Safeway, Bunnings, the list goes on.

Organisations don't have culture, people do!

I get frustrated when dealing with people who have become institutionalised. These are people who for some foolish reason hold the belief that what is good for the organisation (Big brother!) is good for them. Thus, when firing workers or choosing to be unethical within the realms of law, they choose to side with the organisation. We've all been there, you've gone to some institution with their own bureaucracy, and someone behind the counter just keeps telling you no for inane or banal reasons. You try and convince them they have the ability to think for themselves, but it makes no iota of difference.

How can you make a difference? Make choices not for the culture of the organisation, but for the little guy. If you have the opportunity in your work, make the decision that doesn't side with the large multi-national! The best example of this is tobacco companies covering up the truth about the dangers of smoking, another is the housing sector in America. Brokers were encouraged by banks to provide sub prime (high interest) loans rather than prime (standard interest) loans EVEN to people who were eligible for the prime loans! Legally the broker was well within his rights to do so, but ethically, should not have. Many of us have occupations where we have a choice that while legal, is ethically questionable. Don't get sucked into the culture of the organisation, you are NOT who you work for.

References:

http://www.managementhelp.org/org_thry/culture/culture.htm