This IWD, let’s talk about sexual violence in our movements

by Andy Mason Comment Closed
Written by Breana Macpherson-Rice and Elizabeth Morley, originally published on Medium, March 8 2018. Another year, another International Women’s Day. But this past year has not been insignificant for women politically; huge women’s marches have echoed our anger as revelation after revelation related to sexual violence has propelled the #metoo movement, throwing into the spotlight issues that have always been known deeply by women, but have never been deemed sufficiently serious enough for social reckoning. As two young women who spend a lot of our time organising for climate justice, we want to use this international women’s day to drive home that it is beyond time that environment and progressive groups started taking the issue of sexual violence seriously. We can see this problem at all levels. From incidents at global climate negotiations, to recent revelations of serious abuses of power at Oxfam, to the victim blaming attitude recently displayed by Bob Brown, it is clear that ‘progressive’ institutions and spaces are no more insulated from sexual violence than the rest of...
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Shutting Down The Adani Port

by Andy Mason Comment Closed
By Nic Avery. Originally published in The Saturday Paper, February 10 2018.Tess Newport (foreground) and Nicholas Avery lock on to a coal conveyor belt at Abbot Point. CREDIT: LUCA LAMONTI pulled the emergency stop cord until it bore my full weight. The drone of the conveyor started to abate, and, with it, a long bed of coal, the end point of a process of extraction that stretches hundreds of kilometres into the heart of Queensland, ground to a halt.The next 12 hours stretched onwards, snapping into moments of clarity I have rarely experienced. The closest analogy I have is with watching my mother die of cancer in a palliative care ward: acute, intense, all consuming. Yet this time the immediacy of the events was infused with a strong sense of empowerment.By locking our arms to the coal conveyor belt at Abbot Point port, myself and four others – Tess Newport, Juliet Lamont, Luca Lamont and Jeffrey Cantor – shut down Adani’s...
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“Sorry means you don’t do it again”: Grandmothers Against Removals

by Andy Mason Comment Closed
A look at the grandmothers who are fighting the system and getting their grandchildren back.Originally published in Honi Soit, 30th January 2017 Most people don’t know that more Aboriginal children are being taken from their families today than in the ‘Stolen Generations’. We spoke with Aunt Deb Swan from Grandmothers Against Removals (GMAR). Aunt Deb started GMAR in 2014 with four other Gomeroi grandmothers, Aunt Jen, Aunt Suellyn, Aunty Hazel, and Aunty Patty, to fight the systematic removal of their grandchildren.“We always knew it was about racism. My sister, Jen had her grandkids removed. She made complaints, and was already looking after them.”Another woman from Gunnedah, Suellyn Tighe, applied to be the legal carer of her grandkids. “Suellyn was assessed, supposedly by ‘independent people’, but her grandchildren were placed with their white grandparents who weren’t even assessed”, Aunt Deb said.Aunt Deb believes that the kids should have been placed with Suellyn, “They had more contact with her — a stronger bond.”“We...
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AI, automation and the future of work

by Andy Mason Comment Closed
By Andy Mason. Originally published by Pulp, 4 Dec 2016.  Three weeks on and the world is still reeling from the news that a bright orange cartoon supervillain will be the next president of the world’s leading economic and political power.As predicted by The Simpsons 16 years ago. Pic source: The Guardian Most media coverage and left-leaning discussions on social media since have focussed on the role of sexism and racism in paving the way for Trump’s victory. The connection between anti-immigrant sentiment and job losses in the US due to outsourcing and low-cost immigrant labour, is a deeper story which has mostly been ignored or glossed over. Warning: shitloads of hyperlinks because we don’t fuck around. In order to appeal to middle (white) America, who are supposedly pissed off at the decline of US manufacturing, Trump is promising to end illegal immigration into the US and abolish trade deals that have allegedly caused job losses in the USA. In the end he...
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Doomsday preppers: paranoid nutjobs or eco-visionaries?

by Andy Mason Comment Closed
By Andy Mason, originally published in Sydney University student newspaper Honi Soit, 26th May 2016Recently, in order to avoid doing any actual study about environmental issues, I’ve been binge watching National Geographic’s Doomsday Preppers. It follows US families who’ve devoted themselves to preparing for any number of doomsday scenarios – everything from natural disasters like earthquakes and hurricanes to a nuclear attack or economic collapse. Many have invested tens of thousands of dollars or more in any number of elaborate schemes to protect their family from catastrophe – underground bunkers, home-made tanks, surveillance systems, booby-traps, you name it. Of course, most are also obsessed with stockpiling as many guns and as much ammunition as possible so they can defend themselves and their families from the hostile masses should society go belly-up. It’s easy to dismiss the “preppers” as paranoid nutjobs, and I suspect this spectacle is the primary appeal of the show. Preppers seem like the ultimate proof of the absurd...
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