Submission against the FOURTH coal loader (warning- some coarse language)

The submission that you can download by clicking the link below contains course language, if you don’t like swear words don’t read it. As i say at the end of the thing “I feel that occasional coarse language is infinitely less offensive than approving new coal mines and coal loaders is, and am fine with this submission being displayed publicly.”

T4_submish

Swan, class warfare, and the economic ‘wisdom’ of melting the ice caps

It was a week which started with Federal Treasurer Wayne Swan having a go at the mining billionaires for distorting our democracy, but which soon entered a new phase whereby the Labor party illustrated the rather narrow range within which our two party system apparently has room to move.

Image credit: Alan Porritt(AAP) from http://www.abc.net.au/environment/articles/2010/05/11/2896442.htm

Swan called out “the greed of a wildly irresponsible few” mining magnates for using their cash to distort public debate around the mining tax and carbon tax, telling the  National Press Club on March 5 that “the debate over the future of our country is at risk of being distorted and decided not by the strength of ideas, but the strength of influence.”

Swan Described this as “…a deeply disturbing development that we must understand properly so that we can resist it forcefully.”

Agreeable sentiments, to be sure.

This ruffled a few feathers, with Shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey and former Victorian premier Jeff Kennett accusing Swan of engaging in “class warfare”.

Just as this brouhaha was developing, an internal Greenpeace document outlining campaign strategies to try and stop or slow down the massive expansion in Australian coal and unconventional gas exports conveniently found its way into the media’s hands. Conservative commentators in turn demanded that Swan and his ALP cohorts condemn the document. If Swan wanted to escalate his supposed agitation for ‘class warfare’, here was his chance; he could defend Greenpeace’s right to question the wisdom of the mining expansion, or at the very least just keep his mouth shut. Instead he obligingly sunk the boot into Greenpeace, describing them as ‘deeply irresponsible’ and ‘irrational’ and said that “The coal industry is a very important part of our national economy, it’s a very important part of our energy supply and I think it’s very important to the global economy.”

Greenpeace Pasha Bulker laser projector stunt, 2007. Image from http://knowledge.allianz.com/energy/fossil_fuels/?673/energy-profile-coal

Federal Trade Minister Craig Emerson then also weighed in, telling Sky News that Greenpeace activists were “delusional” and were living in “fantasy land” and said that ‘‘The idea of flicking a switch from coal and other fossil fuels to renewable energy cannot be done.’’ Emerson claimed that moving from coal to renewables would cause “a global depression” and “would mean mass starvation”.

On what basis is Emerson asserting that a relatively rapid (say, decade long) transition from coal to renewables “cannot be done”? Would the supply of electricity not be able to match demand since, as some like to drearily assert ‘the sun doesn’t always shine and the wind doesn’t always blow’? Would grid upgrades to link the (necessarily) geographically diverse solar thermal and wind plants be technically unfeasible, or too expensive?

Enercon e-126 wind turbine erection. Image from http://www.stprojektai.lt/Vejo%20jegaines%20ENERCON.html

Is not wind, the cheapest and most proven of the renewables family, quickly closing in on coal as the cheapest form of new generating capacity- period? Would rolling out tranches of successively larger solar thermal plants not deliver economies of scale and bring down the price of each new round to be built, as has been projected by independent analysts with a wealth of experience in building power plants?

If Emerson were to actually take up any of these more specific points he would then have to defend his stance against real world evidence, as can be found in documents like the Zero Carbon Australia 2020 report by Beyond Zero Emissions. Instead Emerson has taken a much simpler and easier to defend position – ‘renewables cannot be done because they cannot be done’, also known as ‘renewables cannot be done because Craig Emerson said so’. This is intriguingly similar to ‘renewables cannot be done because the mining industry says so’.

Zero Carbon Australia 2020 proposed 100% renewable energy grid. Image from report which is downloadable for free at http://beyondzeroemissions.org/zero-carbon-australia-2020

Pesky engagement with the known parameters of the actual subject matter – modern renewable energy generation technology and those strategies which guide its efficient and effective use – is conveniently avoided by sticking to vacuously broad (and incorrect) truisms.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard weighed into the Greenpeace bashing too, and repeated a mantra spoken by herself, Rudd and Combet many times before: “The coal industry has got a great future in this country. We’ve made that clear all along. You’re seeing that future being built now as we see expansion in our coal exports particularly.”

And so the excellent two party system of democracy in Australia, in which the Greens get 12% of the vote in the lower house and have one seat out of 150 to show for it, provides us with two clear choices. We can either have a coal and unconventional gas export expansion on steroids… or a coal and unconventional gas export expansion on steroids!

Bravo, two party democracy – you’re really hooking us up with options here. You’re really putting the people in the drivers seat.

But hey, its about the economy isn’t it, stupid. It’s a field best left to the experts. And mainstream, neoliberal economics – as espoused by Emerson, Swan and pretty much the entire Lib-Lab duopoly – aint no ordinary economics. No – mainstream economics in fact exists in an interesting parallel universe whereby knowingly causing irreversible catastrophic warming is an economically sensible idea. Indeed, it’s the neoliberal consensus that this is actually the ‘best practice’ option. Cutting emissions to maintain our relatively stable and benign climate so that all productive economic interactions and optimal levels of food production can continue occurring within it is a ‘luxury’ we can’t afford; least of all in the current economic climate. As Swan puts it, such an approach would be ‘irrational’ and ‘destructive’.

Mainstream economics says that digging up and exploiting the planets entire ‘fuel tank’ worth of accumulated cheap fossil energy as quickly as possible is an economic ‘necessity’ – despite the availability of proven renewable alternatives.

Only those of us living in ‘fantasy land’ would actually think that it is economically desirable to maintain such frivolous and unnecessary things as ‘the polar icecaps which regulate the earth’s temperature and weather patterns’ or ‘glacier fed river systems that provide food and water to over a billion people’.

I can just see the inheritors of the Lib-Lab tradition one hundred years from now, proudly explaining to the world how the unceasing barrage of floods, droughts, heatwaves and associated pestilence and famine are the result of prudent economic choices made at the turn of the millennium. Our great grandchildren will surely look back and thank those supremely forward thinking paragons of economic wisdom like Gillard, Swan, Emerson, Abbott and Hockey, who selflessly battled to ensure we didn’t even attempt something so economically ‘irresponsible’ as switching to renewables.

NOSIC, AFP stooges: piss off! Stop spying on climate activists.

On January 7, the Fairfax news chain (which publishes the Newcastle Herald) ran stories in the Sydney Morning Herald and the Melbourne Age regarding spying on climate activists by the Australian Federal Police and a private firm called NOSIC.

Federal Resources and energy minister Martin Ferguson was reported as having agitated for increased surveillance of activists who make ‘essential infrastructure’ like coal fired power stations the focus of their mobilisations.

As someone who has been involved in a fair bit of climate and renewable energy campaigning over the past few years this is of more than a passing interest for me.

Perhaps Martin Ferguson and others in the ALP think that the carbon tax ticks the climate change box and people are no longer justified in taking action around this issue.

Nothing could be further from the truth. The carbon tax is like sending a fireperson in a mini moke with a 44 gallon drum of water and a bucket to try and put out a raging house fire. The ‘fire engine’ response that is called for -  massive investment in renewables, a phasing out of steaming coal exports, and alternative quality jobs for coal reliant workers and communities – is still sorely lacking.

On December 13 last year- my birthday- new reports emerged about vast kilometre – wide plumes of methane bubbling up out of the arctic seafloor.

[image from here]

I was concerned but not entirely surprised because unlike Ferguson and others in the ALP I’m actually familiar with (at least some of) the sizeable body of peer reviewed scientific reports which warn that warming is thawing the methane rich clathrates (or permafrost) in the arctic circle. This, just like ‘albedo flip’ (which is where the north pole melts and goes from being a reflective body of ice, to a heat absorbing body of dark blue ocean) will take initial anthropogenic warming and make it far, far worse.

The 5% cuts in emissions by 2020 embodied in the carbon tax- much of which are likely to be cuts only on paper, achieved by shonky ‘leveraged’ carbon trading – fall far short of what is required. The arctic is melting now. We can’t keep delaying decarbonising the economy for a few more decades.

And so myself and many others like me – from across the Hunter, and up the valley to Gunnedah and Gloucester, Broke and Mudgee, and all across the country from various walks of life, all continue to campaign against the coal and gas expansion. And we will hold protests at coal loaders and coal fired power stations because… that’s what we are protesting about! It’s out of date. It’s trashing the planet. Get rid of it. The alternatives are good to go.

Anyhow, when I’m saying hello to friends or family on facebook, I don’t really want to have it in the back of my mind that some overpaid stooge from Melbourne is face-stalking me.

So in conclusion: piss off. If the government insists on spying on people, how about you spy on those who are destroying aquifers with longwall mines and coal seam gas wells, causing serious health problems by pumping coal dust and smokestack emissions into the air in the Hunter Valley, and vastly expanding those fossil fuel industries which are pushing us ever closer to dangerous irreversible warming. How about you spy on those elected officials who throw the precautionary principle out the window every time they approve these mines and coal fired power stations and unconventional gas projects.

I believe history will record that those of us taking peaceful action to draw attention to the breathtaking insanity of expanding fossil fuel exports and use (which in some instances involved low-level lawbreaking such as trespassing) were entirely justified in taking these actions. Indeed, some may ask why the general population at this point in history did not take such action more often and in greater numbers.

Whether it is climate activists paddling in Newcastle Harbour, farmers campaigning against mining and gas extraction under or adjacent to their land, or Singleton residents campaigning for tighter controls on dust emissions – we are not criminals. We are defending the most basic public interest of current and future generations and do not deserve to be spied on for it.

Zane Alcorn in a climate and renewable energy campaigner with the Socialist Alliance.

Alliance Voices discussion – ‘Eco’socialism: it’s like ‘democratic’ socialism

This is a discussion piece I sent to Alliance Voices in the leadup to the Socialist Alliance’s 8th National Conference which is happening on Jan 20-22 in the new year.

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There is an interesting thread in the Alliance Voices blog leading into the 2012 conference regarding ecosocialism.

Comrades Sam Bullock and Adam Baker have advanced an argument for the Socialist Alliance to amend some of our public documents or whatever to say that we are an ecosocialist organisation would amount to some sort of watering down or weakening of our politics.

I don’t agree with Sam and Adam – and will proceed to outline why – but I think it is good that they have made their views on this question known.

By raising the issue it has certainly prompted me to write up a response and may well prompt a few other comrades to do the same and the end result, hopefully, will be that comrades have a think about the issues raised and we all will walk away with a clearer idea of where we stand on this as an organisation.

I think it’s a healthy thing to have these debates in a comradely manner.

Straw-man arguments about Cuba

Before anything else there are a few of what I feel are “straw man arguments” about Cuba that have been advanced by Comrade Baker that I just quickly want to comment on.

#1 Comrade Baker says:

“Despite the example of Cuba, ecosocialists still seem to claim that socialism is inherently environmentally destructive, hence the need to add an ‘eco’. But this is very revealing. Do ecosocialists seriously intend to go before the working class, and warn them against struggling for socialism, as socialism will destroy the environment? What type of message is this?”

Where do I start? This is just absurd. For a start, if ecosocialists wanted to warn the workers against struggling for socialism they probably would have deleted the word “socialist” out of their banner name. Secondly, there is a bunch of people who identify as ecosocialists (which is way too long to put here) that are staunch and vocal advocates of the Cuban example. But to name a few: Derek Wall, Joel Kovel, Hugo Blanco, Ian Angus, Patrick Bond, Michael Löwy not to mention several of our own comrades including myself.

#2 Comrade Baker says:

“If ecosocialism is correct, what about the Cuban people and the Cuban revolution? Have they been on the wrong path since 1959? Should they have been building ecosocialism instead of socialism? Are ecosocialists going to attempt to win the Cuban people and the Cuban government to the perspective of ecosocialism? It all seems to unravel here for the ecosocialists.”

Again, see above. There is a long list of people who identify as ecosocialist who are among the staunchest advocates of Cuba’s striking achievements with regard to agro-ecology and organic agriculture, marine parks, forestry reserves and reafforestation programs etc.

The last thing these people would want to do is tell the Cuban people what labels they should or should not apply to their efforts. I would contend that the ecosocialists quoted above would love nothing more than to see the Cuban experience more or less replicated all around the world.

I would also note that I don’t think Sam or Adam are actually saying that our climate and environment work is not important. I just think that they have a misplaced conception that the ecosocialist movement is populated by reformists and represents a political dead end, or a trap or something.

The ‘red green’ thing

Comrade Baker notes that:

“For more than 20 years (or perhaps more) the former DSP held the perspective that it was necessary to unite the environmental and socialist movements, the green and red movements, if there was to be a chance at obtaining a just world. But for almost all of this time, the former DSP, and then the Socialist Alliance, was able to campaign on and forge this perspective without any reference to ‘ecosocialism’.”

To me this doesn’t somehow prove that the Socialist Alliance has nothing to gain by adding its name to the international “ecosocialist” camp.

It just shows that the old DSP was onto the significance of “the red green thing” before this had matured and grown in popularity to the extent that it now has a name and is a fledgling international movement.

The same could be said of the ecological achievements of Cuba (which, it should be noted,-particularly with regard to agriculture, were implemented after the collapse of the USSR). They were implementing/practicing eco-socialism before such terminology had been coined because they are innovators, trail-blazers.

To say that Cuba is only eco-socialist if they self identify as eco-socialist is just semantics I reckon. They are eco-socialist.

Greece

Comrade Baker says:

“A demand for ecosocialism at a demonstration of hundreds of thousands storming the Greek parliament over draconian economic austerity measures just would not fit. In this and other situations, what does ecosocialism have to offer?”

For a start, the assertion that “a demand for ecosocialism would not fit” is a purely subjective opinion. Moreover, an assumption is being made here that Greek ecosocialists would simply demand “ecosocialism” at such a mobilisation and would not bring some sort of more nuanced demand to such a protest.

If you go to the Greek ecosocialists blog there is an article about their participation at a May Day rally in Athens this year. In this instance their motto was “Bosses have to pay for the crisis. Not immigrants and workers”.

A leading member of the Ecosocialist International Network, Antonis Petropoulos, actually works in the ecotourism sector in Greece. I understand tourism composes around a fifth of Greek GDP. Petropoulos reckons that:

“One solution, for some people at least, could be for them to start a peaceful revolution not (only) to change the government, but to change the way they live, work, deal with their fellow citizens, thinking along the lines of self-managed enterprises (as in post-IMF Argentina), collectives, local exchange trading systems, local/alternative currencies, urban farms.”

This might not be the most Leninist-flavour quote you will ever read. But I think the vision Antonis paints is generally consistent with the sort of change we are trying to create.

You can visit Antonis’ blog here.

Is ecosocialism ‘reformist’?

Is ecosocialism reformist, or some sort of distraction from confronting and dismantling capitalism and building a socialist alternative?

A good place to look for answers to such questions is the website of the Ecosocialist International Network (EI) where you will find documents such as the Belem declaration which was released by the EI to coincide with the Copenhagen talkfest in 2009. The declaration was supported by more than 400 activists from 34 countries.

I would encourage comrades to have at the very least a quick look over the Belem declaration and see if it reads like a “reformist” manifesto.

This section from the Belem declaration for instance does not to me sound terribly reformist:

“Ecosocialism involves a revolutionary social transformation, which will imply the limitation of growth and the transformation of needs by a profound shift away from quantitative and toward qualitative economic criteria, an emphasis on use-value instead of exchange-value.”

What is this “use value” they speak of? It’s almost like the authors have a firm grasp on Marxist economics or something!

It continues:

“These aims require both democratic decision-making in the economic sphere, enabling society to collectively define its goals of investment and production, and the collectivization of the means of production. Only collective decision-making and ownership of production can offer the longer-term perspective that is necessary for the balance and sustainability of our social and natural systems.”

Again – “the collectivisation of the means of production”. Is this a reformist concept?

Revolutionary change

The manifesto then again mentions this idea of the need for revolutionary change and places significance on linking up with the global south:

“The most oppressed elements of human society, the poor and indigenous peoples, must take full part in the ecosocialist revolution, in order to revitalize ecologically sustainable traditions and give voice to those whom the capitalist system cannot hear. Because the peoples of the global south and the poor in general are the first victims of capitalist destruction, their struggles and demands will help define the contours of the ecologically and economically sustainable society in creation.

 

Similarly, gender equality is integral to ecosocialism, and women’s movements have been among the most active and vocal opponents of capitalist oppression. Other potential agents of ecosocialist revolutionary change exist in all societies.
Such a process cannot begin without a revolutionary transformation of social and political structures based on the active support, by the majority of the population, of an ecosocialist program. The struggle of labour – workers, farmers, the landless and the unemployed – for social justice is inseparable from the struggle for environmental justice. Capitalism, socially and ecologically exploitative and polluting, is the enemy of nature and of labour alike.”
(Belem declaration)

Sure, the phrase “workers’ state” is a notable omission.

But the reality is that the Belem declaration represents a radical anti-capitalist and internationalist approach to climate activism in a context where a heck of a lot of the (mis)leadership of the climate movement takes an openly reformist and NGO/lobbyist approach.

The ecosocialist international is an attempt to build a radical alternative to the prevailing reformism. To say that the EI is itself reformist just because it does not quote the correct revolutionary buzzwords enough times in its manifesto is a shallow reading of what the ecosocialist movement is about in my view.

At the end of they day they are just words!

Ultimately, if it is good enough for John Bellamy Foster to simply describe himself as “socialist” without the “eco” prefix, then it won’t be the end of the world if the Socialist Alliance continues to do the same.

But that’s the thing. The Socialist Alliance is not an individual socialist academic taking special care to make their important contribution to the evolution of Socialist/Marxist thought accessible and palatable to all the various Socialist grouplets around the world.

We are a socialist party – an alliance of parties and individuals – which engages with even broader forces in Australia and in other countries to build a movement for radical social change.

To be clear, we consciously don’t exclude working with anarchists and left reformists either. On the contrary, if we have identified that these groups are useful allies in building a radical movement for change and keeping it going we will emphasise our willingness to work together for shared goals despite our political differences.

Ticking the boxes in terms of what revolutionary words we use or what we call ourselves is great, but the movement for fundamental change will suffer a major setback if the not insubstantial momentum of recent years on the streets for climate action succumbs to the ALP demobilisation machine which is in full effect right now with its piss-weak carbon tax.

We want to keep all those movements we are involved in mobilising if at all possible. Calling ourselves “ecosocialist” is about re-emphasising the importance we place on the ecological question.

We exist in a specific corner of the world which happens to be a very arid continent which is quite vulnerable to the effects of climate change. We are also the world’s largest coal exporter, and the most powerful capitalists in this corner of the world are staging an unconventional gas fracking bonanza and a vast coal mining expansion.

We know that socialism must intrinsically be ecologically sustainable or else it is robbing future generations of their lot and is not true socialism. It’s the people outside our ranks who we wish to work with, or even get inside the Socialist Alliance tent, that we are pitching at here. We need to step outside our own well-read reality for a moment and remember that socialism is a big idea that has been very deliberately and repeatedly misrepresented by the capitalist thought-broadcasting machine.

We need to be a bit strategic about how we use our limited forces to break through those significant misconceptions and start the process of explaining what socialism “really” is to people of various levels of engagement and political consciousness.

Why would we say ‘democratic’ socialism?

Isn’t socialism intrinsically “democratic” just like it is intrinsically “eco” and “homo/ queer/ LGBTIQ”, “Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander”, “feminist”…

It’s quite simple. One would put “eco” in front of “socialism” for the exact same reason that the former Democratic Socialist Perspective/Party used to put the word “democratic” at the start of its name.

True socialism is intrinsically democratic, so why include the word “democratic”? Was the DSP trying to tell people that socialism is undemocratic and offering some sort of completely different alternative with this so-called “democratic” socialism? No.

Early attempts at building a whole new society went a bit off the rails. Some countries didn’t end up being terribly democratic – indeed there emerged some unpleasant instances of systematic political repression. And so the DSP wanted to emphasise “its” socialism as distinct from those nonetheless important and fruitful experiments.

Formally joining the ecosocialist movement is not about lecturing the Cuban people on their amazing achievements – which incidentally as mentioned are a key example most eco-socialists come back to when distinguishing “ecosocialism” from other less ecologically harmonious experiments in Communism/Socialism.

The working class and its many political bodies of leadership, research and debate generally seeks to learn from the past and tries to build on past successes. It also tries to rectify errors in building a “new and improved” socialism. It’s a drawn-out and constantly ongoing process.

We want a strong party, but power needs to be decentralised enough that a Stalinist clique would have difficulty taking the reins “once and for all” and could still be recalled or at least firmly restrained by the organs of democracy elsewhere within (and outside of) the party and the State.

I think there is an unhealthy tendency among some on the left about having this discussion because its easier to label someone as an enemy of socialism than have a serious discussion about how to create a people-powered set of checks and balances to try and ensure future revolutions – indeed the Australian socialist or ecosocialist revolution – has a robust resistance to Stalinist deformation built into it.

Lessons were learned in the first great socialist revolution in Russia such as going straight from Tsarism to socialism in an underdeveloped country without having gone through capitalism can be a dicey road to take. But we can see why the Bolsheviks did it, and they still achieved a helluva lot. Today even bureaucratically deformed socialism has its supporters in the former Soviet states because, in a whole range of ways, life is worse now under capitalism than it had been under Communism.

Cuba, in the 1980s, had an agricultural system that chewed through heaps of pesticides and fertilisers and depleted the soil. Cuba grew heaps of monoculture sugar and stuff to export to the USSR in exchange for various other items the Cuban people needed. And that was sort of how Moscow liked it. They had good marine parks and forest reserves but their agriculture system wasn’t actually that amazing, ecologically-speaking.

The real ecologisation of the Cuban revolution happened after the collapse of the USSR when Cuba was forced to become self-sufficient and the Cubans were fortunately able to implement a whole bunch of sweet low-input agriculture methods developed by the Cuban equivalent of the CSIRO. In addition, the Cuban people had a natural impulse to get into urban gardening and, because the Cuban state is “rad”, it supported and facilitated those changes.

Emphasising the “eco” in socialism or the “democratic” in socialism is not about saying that your regular old household brand of socialism is not ecologically friendly or democratic.

It’s about being open and honest and saying that, “Yes, in many ways the USSR was actually pretty good, but it had its problems too”.

What we are trying to do in building a movement to get rid of capitalism in Australia and create a socialist society and economy is to learn from past attempts to create socialism and try and ensure that “our” socialism is a genuinely democratic and ecologically sound evolution of the socialist project.

‘Eco-socialism’ implicitly acknowledges a political paradigm shift

In this fundamentally new paradigm of looming climate disaster, we want to be part of delivering an accountable government of the working class. It must be a government which puts the mass movement in the driver’s seat and does not gesticulate in exercising state power to phase out the coal and gas industries and move to 100% renewables as rapidly as possible while delivering alternative livelihoods to coal-reliant workers and communities. This new system must also get rid of institutional sexism, racism and homophobia, provide free improved healthcare, dental care and education, boost the minimum wage and implement full employment.

But we aren’t just going to take over the coal industry and then, once it is in state hands, keep it going and use the revenue to pay for wage increases and improvements to health and education and all that. This is an important distinction to make because that is exactly what an “orthodox” socialist government of the 20th century would have done.

Even if we had a 50-100 year window of opportunity to phase out coal, an ecosocialist government might still run some coal-fired power stations with strict controls on smokestack emissions, dust and water table impacts. But we don’t have 50-100 years. We have 5-10 years.

The ecosocialist movement is not “fly by night”. It is an attempt to build something big and powerful in this limited time frame or at least prepare the grounds for the emergence of this big and powerful international movement. It’s about linking the struggles of different socialists and environmentalists all around the world.

It is only recently with new peer reviewed scientific reports and events like the 2007 Arctic melt that the full dizzying seriousness of the climate problem that has been talked about for decades has come to light.

It is impossible to overemphasise how grave this problem is. I feel that on the “controversial” question of nationalising the coal industry (controversial to the broader climate movement, that is), an “ecosocialist” takeover and phase out of the coal industry is an important distinction for us to make.

New school nationalisation

It’s a discussion about how state power historically has been used – i.e. “old school nationalisation” versus how it could be used in regard to a transition away from fossil fuels – the “new school nationalisation style”.

We should actively be seeking to have that discussion with people because the question of nationalisation is an example of a sub-category of socialism that is of itself (intentionally) loaded with lots of stigma and preconceptions.

We need to, and intend to, redistribute wealth from other areas to achieve the quite sweeping shift that is the transition from a growth-based capitalist economy to an egalitarian, non-growth based socialist economy/society. But as for coal (and especially steaming coal for electricity production) the 5-10 year transition and phase-out thing is “not negotiable”. Workers would necessarily need to be heavily involved in developing and implementing the transition and in that sense there would necessarily be a heck of a lot of negotiation.

Emphasising our “eco” socialist standpoint may be another way in which we can instigate these sort of discussions about a socialist approach to climate action and enshrine our “new school nationalise-em-to-shut-em-down” game plan.

It’s about recognising the urgency of the climate problem, comrades.

History is now whispering quite loudly and creepily in our ear that we don’t have much time left to break with capitalism and build an eco-friendly socialist alternative or we will be well and truly up shit creek. This sets the “eco” question apart from other equally important issues we campaign on.

The decision about whether or not to amend some of our statements and manifestos so that we identify ourselves as part of the international ecosocialist movement is simply about saying do we think it is strategically important, in the 2012 Australian context, to emphasise the “eco” in socialism? Do we want to emphasise that as a key concern for us to more clearly distinguish our overall political line to our audience?

It’s about action

Socialism is not just about theory: it is about action and it is about relating to broader forces.

Socialist theory and learning from the successes and failures of the past is crucially important. But one of the things we have learned, a sort of “rule number one” if you will, is that it is mass movements that create meaningful change. Mass movements are more capable of (quite quickly) learning complex lessons about their own power and how to further assert and develop it than individuals and small groups in isolation are, because the mass movement “learns by doing” – en masse.

In this context, finding ways to collaborate with broader forces that are more or less at our end of the political spectrum and which have shown their willingness to mobilise around climate and “eco” issues is more important than putting up barriers between us and projects that aren’t “revolutionary enough” like some allege of the ecosocialist movement.

To quote Shakespeare in Romeo and Juliet (which I hope isn’t somehow a reformist thing to do): “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet”.

Whether the Socialist Alliance includes some reference to ecosocialism, or amends some of our manifestos to describe ourselves as part of the international ecosocialist movement, is not going to have some magical domino effect on our political consciousness and approach to movement work.

But maybe it is a good strategic angle for us to take.

And maybe the Socialist Alliance can be a voice in the international ecosocialist movement “keeping it real”, and argue in support of radical solutions and against any potential slide of the EI into wishy-washy reformism if we think that’s a problem facing the EI (which I personally don’t think is an issue right now at all).

In any case, it’s a useful discussion to be having.

The Fig Gig.

Maybe you could have a rap battle,

In Civic park,

it could  -  start at dusk, and finish after dark

winner takes all in the chop or let grow stakes,

the utimate decider to sort the real from the fakes…

You could call it ‘the fig gig’ and it would have to be big,

perhaps the fat as butter crew could do the sound rig.

You could have four for the figs

and four dickheads against;

people could watch em slug it out from in the comfort of tents.

It’d be newies own f#*ken 99 per cent,

like when Hanson was in town… and got told… to GET BENT!

These people are all so damn worried about RISK,

But have a think about that- and then riddle me this:

They wreck rivers mining coal and gas,

But state Lib-Lab governments don’t give a rats.

They piss around as the arctic melts,

And are like ‘how can we get more coal on those conveyor belts??”

People are getting all their sh*t repossesed

But they’re like “poker machine laws? I must protest!”

I wonder…

Whats the most dangerous thing in the city by far?

Hmmm…I… oh… ah..

oh yess… yes- YES!… I know… CARS.

But they don’t give them the chop now do they?

Far from it! They even want to take the trains away…

Isn’t it just the best thing for tourism here since BHP shut:

Getting those ugly trees - and shredding ‘em all up?

Newcastle’s like the antithesis of Melbourne:

Instead of bringin in tourists with street art, we tell them:

‘Welcome to the town of the white picket fence,

‘nothing here is too confronting or intense’,

Theres the rapid response unit to go over graffiti,

The council crew have a gang sign called ‘beige done neatly’

They paint it up over all the local writers

Cappin every crew hard. (But never coming to ciphers!)

Fresh from the war on graf that they wage for YOU,

The council now has more ‘beautification’ to do…

See were gonna ‘leverage our brand’ against Sydney too;

Just think:

“ Beautiful trees! Are a risk to YOU!

Come to our town, it will be lovely and SAFE!

-all of those DANGEROUS trees are getting laid to waste!”

Soon they’re probably gonna ban the beaches as well,

And the tourists will flock, to SAFELY sit and view the swell.

Can you believe it’s come down to this?

Common sense – versus miniscule ‘proabable risks’?

…the ‘climate sceptics’ don’t mind the risk,

And the gas frackers don’t mind the risk

From Fullerton Cove to Caroona, they’re diggin pits

(…And State insurance companies dont mess with that sh*t!)

You can get hit by a car when you’re out on the piss

And the local government is not liable for this

But those fourteen figs – that look clean and crisp?

… we should all be terrified! And quickly cut em to bits!

 

Well, before they read out their last will and testament,

Is it too much to ask: for this independent assessment?

If they are so dangerous,  bring on the second opinion

… prove you’re not just a Saraman with ork-chainsaw-minions.

Yea right. The most dangerous thing in the city is those Figs.

Mmm. And those boats off the coast: they get loaded up with
flying pigs….

My last day in Manila (Oct 19): craazy shit at the PALEA picket.

Rather than try and transcribe or write a lengthy post i’ll let the recordings do the talking.

In a nutshell, I visisted the PALEA picket on Wed October 19 (the day I was leaving Manila to come back to Australia) and just happened to be there to witness an aborted attempt to try and physically remove the picket by a bunch of riot cops and a big gang of strikebreaker thugs in white shirts.

Fortunately there were well over 1000 PALEAns at the picket and they held strong; and the union president was able to remind the cops (there were 500+ riot cops with batons, helmets and shields) that they had no right to try and pull the picket down. It would have been on for young and old if they tried…

Anyhow listen to these recordings; a running commentary of what happened. Its worth it. If you are one of these busy busy people with no time at least listen to #1 and #5.

Recording #1 – those arent scabs! Its about 100 beefy strikebreakers- being escorted to the entrance of the picket by the pigs!

Recording #2 – further update- ‘barbarians at the gates’ style. Intense moment.

Recording #3 – PALEA president Gerry Rivera addresses the picketers in the heat of the moment; reassures the crowd and reminds everyone that they are well within their rights to be there and the cops have no court order mandate of any kind to try and move them on.

Recording #4 – Rivera heads across to negotiate w the cops; union VP Alnem Pretencio holds the fort.

Recording #5 – Rivera returns from negotiations (followed by a media scrum) and the cops and white-shirt thugs clear off to the other side of the street. Much celebration including by far the most epic rendition of ‘solidarity forever’ that i have had the privelidge to witness. Suck on that, Lucio Tan.

Recording #6 – solidarity forever again later on in the evening feat Tagalog (Filipino language) version

An afternoon with tita Flor in Quezon city

Ditto will update soon…