Howard's design for Democracy without Debate

Here are the supporting comments I attached to a GetUp.org email directed to members of the government regarding the proposed introduction of legislation to prevent University administrations from charging a fee to finance Student Unions, on campus organisations that provide a wide range of support, sporting, cultural, social and student-political activities.

In classic Orwellian doublespeak, this legislation is known as "Voluntary Student Unionism". ie it will be MANDATORY that the paying of student union fees be VOLUNTARY.

(A bit like Howard's "Unfair Dismissal" legislation which is actually legislation to allow unfair dismissal!)

Why, you ask, is a right-wing Federal Government (Howard's NOT-liberal government) descending from its lofty God-given heights to meddle in the day-to day running of university administrations and thereby jeopardising the provision of valuable character and health building activities and support services?

Why when surely there are vastly more important things to be tackled - like global terrorism, the war in Iraq, nuclear proliferation, world trade globalisation, poverty, racism, indigenous alienation and marginalisation, drug-trafficking, human rights abuse and global warming?

Is he banking on Australian "I'm alright, Jack" laxities to lead to lower levels of funding being available for student political clubs irrespective of the collateral damage to other organisations and services such as those devoted to support, sporting and cultural.

You wouldn't be that machiavellian, would you Johnny? I mean not as machiavellian as you were with "children overboard" and "weapons of mass destruction"?

Is this another rung in Howard's grand design to build democracy without debate, democracy without dissent here in OZ? You know, the democracy without an independant senate, without an independant judiciary and without an independant media.

Wouldn't it be nice if Australian university students would just be good little girls and boys and concentrate on their studies and pay for their own childcare and their own cricket. We don't want our students getting waylaid by long-haired radicals.

Hey, wait a minute...what was our treasurer Peter Costello (and the Clintons) doing in the seventies? Surely, he (they) weren't student activists!

"Dear Representatives of the people,

The VSU bill is being touted as a step towards the "voluntary" and the "democratic" but its promotors have also made reference to student activism.

I cannot, after the last ten years' bruising to my trust and hope, help but think that a desire to stifle one more source of dissent is not ultimately behind this legisation.

It is not only the collateral damage to vital support and social activities that are being placed at threat here but also the very important role that university debate and dissent - of all political persuasions - plays in the building of personal and national values.

It is in that environment - of university-fostered ideas, action and community - that so many of our current leaders - of all political hues - found their inspiration.

If we're serious about true democracy - as well as building well-rounded individuals and a strong nation - isn't it vital, for the sake of the people and the nation you represent that you seriously question and oppose this legislation and its underlying motivations and negative consequences - for all Australians.

Thankyou, Paula Kaye."

The Immortal words of Pastor Martin Niemoeller

"In Germany they first came for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.

Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant.

Then they came for me —
and by that time no one was left to speak up."

Pastor Martin Niemoeller
Columbia Theological ,Georgia 1959

You know, Australians, maybe we aren't a refugee or a unionist or a muslim or gay, but don't you think it's time we spoke up...while we still can?

Have you read George Orwell's famous classic "1984"; are you familiar with the word "doublespeak"?

What is the meaning of the word "democracy" when it is used by a government that has taken overt, documented steps to erode state rights, the efficacy of the unions, the independance of the media, the independance of the judiciary, the right of churches to speak out about matters of social justice, the rights of workers to basic entitlements, the hopes of refugees and the ability of the people to be heard and taken notice of?

What is the meaning of the words "family values" when used by ultra right wing political and christian bodies to divide the nation, consign ordinary, decent, law-abiding people to second class citizenship, malign all who would speak out for tolerance and diversity, turn back the clock on women's, workers and GLBT rights and promote insidious misogyny, homophobia and transphobia?

Democracy, like life itself, is big, messy, untidy, diverse, inefficient, contentious and often uncomfortable. But from that very diversity, messiness and contention springs change, growth, endeavour, hope and life itself.

Values are things like: love, caring, trust, courage, honesty and integrity. Are they not? Values are about "how" I am not "what" I am. What does the word "values" have to do with my genetically determined condition or the circumstances of my life. What does the word "values" have to do with being a two-parent family or a single-parent family, with being a two-sex family or a same-sex family? If love, caring, trust, courage, honesty and integrity are present in each?

Let's speak out...now...and let's speak out honestly!

Have your say:
Go to GetUp.org!
Go to MoveOn.org!
Blog now! Go to Blogger!

GetUp! and have a go Australians!

Today, the Australian parliament resumed with the Howard not-liberal government having control of the senate. With an ominous start to events the government changed the rules, once again, without consultation, to limit the number of questions that can be put and seeking to limit the Senate estimates process. Government ministers were typically dismissive of Opposition protests as they are of any protest, criticism, opposition or popular expression.

This is a very dangerous time for Australia. A dangerous man driven by dangerous and malign personal ambitions and (not so hidden now) agendas is at the helm, not just of a conservative government but of a government that has actively courted ultra-conservative, ultra-right wing and Christian fundamentalist forces within Australian politics and society.

A government that has sought to callously take advantage of world tragedy to further its own ideology.

To date the Howard government, in open disregard of widespread popular and political protest has:
*deliberately deceived the Australian people over refugees and the Iraq war,
*changed Australian boundaries to suit its appalling immigration policies,
*wrongfully detained and deported Australian citizens,
*unlike all other nations, ignored the fate of Australian citizens detained in the Guantanamo Bay detention facility in contravention to any form of international law or humanitarian principles,
*run its own malign detention system for refugees in the absence of any compassion or accountability which has seen hundreds of desperate children, women and men locked up behind razor wire in detention camps in the desert.
*arrogantly and deceitfully taken this country, despite widespread popular protest and in the absence of any international mandate or valid reason, into a war that has not only been disastrous for the Iraqi people and led to the deaths of very large numbers of Iraqi civilians and also many Coalition personnel but which has created huge tensions across the globe and inflamed international terrorism,
*imposed Federal control over state jurisdictions like the control of ports and uranium mining,
*committed Australia to the ongoing presence of US troops being based on Australian soil in so-called "joint" facilities,
*actively sought to degrade the independance of the judiciary and the media, stacking the former with its appointees and concentrating the latter in the hands of sympathetic moguls,
*promoting hate and divisions within the community with its prejudicial and discriminatory policies against gay and lesbian people,
*eroding our economic and cultural sovereignty and well-being by submitting us to a so-called "free" trade agreement with the US and, it hopes, China
*openly and embarassingly displaying a fawning and dangerous admiration for and support of the Bush administration,
*and finally introducing sweeping changes to Australia's successful Industrial Relations laws that would erode workers' rights and hobble independant arbitration.

Lacking an effective opposition and facing the bleak prospect of an increasingly restrictive, proscriptive, divided, subservient, homophobic and xenophobic regime, protest is becoming popular and non-traditional. Increasingly, protest is crossing party, religious and socio-demograhic lines.

One striking example of this is the great initiative of Jeremy Heimans and David Madden who have brought the great techniques of MoveOn.org in the US to Australia. Jeremy and David participated in the 2004 campaign against the Bush menace and have now introduced Australians to the power of internet lobbying. Already Coalition senators have been subjected to thousands of emails protesting the state of the nation and warning them that the people will hold them to account. This is people power 2005 style. Add this to the mass protests of the Union movement, the speaking out of Church and community leaders and the opposition within the government's own ranks and we see a glimmer of hope.

Howard, you dismissed us as "the mob". You reckoned you didn't have to listen to us. I reckon you don't have much of a say in that anymore.

Howard, IT'S TIME...again!

If you're Australian, check out GetUp.org, join up and have your say! Make a difference...while you still can.

If you're not Australian, check it out anyway; hear an alternative to the lies of Bush, Blair and Howard.

Oh! And while you're at it, check out MoveOn.org!

And if you're a blogger, keep on blogging...'cause we sure don't look like having any other form of independant media left to us, if this goes on much longer!

I blog, therefore I am...free!

Sunday Lesson

Last Friday my surgeon, Dr Haertsch, performed a minor adjustment we'd discussed after my sex reassignment surgery a little over a year ago. The skin over my mons pubis area had not joined together as well as it should and it had remained a little tender. Also I felt that my labiae majora were a bit more widely separated than I would have liked. My surgeon wanted to wait the 12 months before he did any adjustments. I was a bit too stressed out when the time to attend to it came round but last Friday we finally did it...under local anaesthetic.

The procedure went well and I am very pleased with the result - prrrr! nice pusso! However, once the local wore off I was a sore and sorry girl. Shades of my previous experience after the operation itself - shuffling carefully, oh! so carefully around the flat like an old neanderthal woman; only too painfully aware how many things in my little world needed bending down to get them!

Alex was wonderful - he drove me there and back and attended to me with great tenderness. But thank god(dess), too, for electric blankets and Mersyndol! Oh! And the Romans! Where would we be without the Romans...and plumbing (read long, hot showers)?

Anyway, I took it fairly easy this weekend, altho' I did get Alex to drive me out to the Feminist Bookshop in Lilyfield yesterday to pick up a copy I'd ordered of Sandra Haldeman Martz' "I am Becoming The Woman I've Wanted" (No! it's not about being transsexual woman per se, tho' the sentiments are very apt and the stories, photos and poems extraordinarily touching and inspiring - it's about the journey, our various journeys, of being and becoming woman).

Big mistake, Paula! I felt every tiny bump in the road thru' our 40 year-old vee-dub's non-suspension. Ouch! Ouch!

This morning, feeling better but still a bit fragile, I sat in the sun under the mandarin tree by the old laundry wall and dipped into Sarah Ban Breathnach's "Simple Abundance: a daybook of Comfort and Joy". Her inspirational thoughts for early August were right on the mark for me.

You see, I have just managed to secure a new appointment at work as an "Operations Specialist", reporting to the business unit manager and supporting her in matters of problem and risk analysis, process and workplace training. That's right up my alley being, in effect, a formal recognition of the work I've done for the last few years. However, I'd be lying if I didn't admit to the little voices of self-criticism and doubt clamouring to pull me down. I sort of feel like now I'm in the spotlight and will be found out as the fraud I am and fail...embarrasingly.

Yeah! I know! We all feel like that!

Anyway, "Simple Abundance" addressed exactly those issues...that's synchronicity for you! I particularly liked two of the chapter headings: "Honouring Our Gifts" and "Calling Forth Our Gifts" as I do know that I have a gift for communication, articulation and teaching...as much as some horrible little person inside me keeps screeching, "yer no good, yer no bloody good, everybody hates you, nobody loves you"! The other thing I really liked was a sentence in the chapter, "Second Thoughts":

"Actually, feeling inadequate to the task we're asked to do seems to be a spiritual prerequisite."

After a while, soaking up late winter's sun I became drowsy. I was roused by a big currawong* shaking the bush lemon tree. She made me see the abundance of fruit which had gone unnoticed even tho' it was right in front of me. "Black bird singin' in a lemon tree". I looked all around me at the glorious mess of our neglected garden...a perfect ruin. It was perfect, all of it. Fallen fruit and rampant creeper, cracked concrete and...and me, broken old me. I had one of those moments - haiku moments - when I knew that I was held in the palm of Goddess, in the matrix 0f Gaia and that everything was as it should be.

Gardens...and currawongs..are great teachers!

Click here to hear a currawong calling. Link to bird sounds on Australian National Botanic Gardens site kindly provided by the lovely Ravensong
Thanks Marit!

Paula's Berry Nice Muffins

INGREDIENTS

2 cups wholemeal SR flour
1 dessertspoon mixed spice
1/2 cup raw, brown or demerara sugar

300g frozen black-, blue- or raspberries

1 free range egg
3/4 cup plain yoghurt
1/2 cup virgin olive oil

METHOD

Mix dry ingredients
Mix in fruit
Separately beat together wet ingredients
Mix all together
Grease a 12 hole muffin tin
Bake at about 200F for about 20-25mins

NOTE: May increase sugar to 3/4 cup for a sweeter muffin

The above recipe evolved from one in the excellent Australian Women's Weekly cookbook series ("Muffins, Scones & Breads").