You can download this episode on MediaFire here.
This episode has an interview with Clare Middlemas and Nathan Verney from Refugee Rights Action Network WA on their convergence to Leonora Detention Centre and refugee rights generally. We also discuss Serco, the private company who runs Australian detention centres for asylum seekers. We start off the episode with some updates on Australian politics and same-sex marriage, including: Gillard wins the leadership battle but still refuses to support same-sex marriage, Wayne Swan’s article on the super-rich in The Monthly, the article ‘6 Things Rich People Need to Stop Saying’, good news and bad news for same-sex rights in the Queensland election, and Bolt supports same-sex marriage. We finish the episode by encouraging everyone to sign this petition to support Australian journalist Austin Mackell, who is facing bogus charges in Egypt. You can find out more about his case by listening to an interview with him here and reading articles about the case here, here, here, and here.
Book Recommendation:
The Hunger Games – read an article about the political themes in this series here and check out the website Hunger is Not a Game here.
Clips:
Myq Kaplan ‘Bigotry is Confusing’, Chumbawamba ‘Homophobia’, The Telegraph ‘Australian politician caught using speech from Michael Douglas film’, The Office (UK) ‘Season 1, Episode 3’, Katters Australian Party ‘Anti-Gay Television Advertisement’, Sydney Morning Herald ‘Bob Katter’s Brother to Star in Gay Marriage Ad’, GetUp! ‘Our response to Bob Katter’, Lagwagon from the album ‘Live in a Dive’, Austin Powers, Justin Sane ‘Thanks for the Letter’, Anti-Flag ‘Mummia’s Song’.
progressivepodcastaustralia 
Hey you guys, it’s eric again, sorry for no commenting for a long time:
I have been listening to a lot of bull shit from moderate liberals saying that Occupy should begin to offer demands. I have one simple problem with this, offering demands to the State means that we believe that the State should exist, well at least us three don’t believe the State should exist. What they want occupy to do is conform into some form of moderate liberal or socialist party form, except there is one problem with that, we have only been doing this for 100 fucking years and it hasn’t worked. “Now for something completely different”- have you heard of the show Radio Dispatch. They are a really good show and they had the writer Lech Harris on to talk about how Marx basically predicted everything that would happen with Capitalism and to talk about Marxist theory in general. Even as Anarchist I loved this episode because I really agree with Marx’s assement of Capitalism. The episode is the 3/26/12 episode of Radio Dispatch.
P.S.- I am going to Charlotte during the DNC Obama Orgy, Police State fest this September and I have a lot of ideas to use images to fight the “mother fucking pigs.” One idea that I am really thinking about is having me and some of my activist friends dress up in full riot gear and gas masks, and firing tear gas at the Police. It serves two purposes, it is a great image to show the rediculousness of the State because why should they have the right to shoot tear gas at us and us not have the right to shoot tear gas at them. And two I am so fucking tired of the police getting away with violence with impunity. I will end with a question- If a person on the street attacks me or one of my friends I am going to attack that person to preseve our lives, why should I act any differently if a cop attacks me or one of my friends? Are the cops above a random person on the street? Why should I accept their supremecy and let them beat up me or my friend when I would never let that happen if it were just a random person?
Hey Eric, always great to hear from you.
I actually just gave a lecture on those debates within the Occupy movement haha, and totally agree with your points. I think the most important part of Occupy is not getting certain laws changed, but showing how society could work without leaders, hierarchy, the state etc – showing that anarchy is possible basically. I’ll post a video and an article on this here in case you or anyone else is interested – check out David Graeber’s stuff – he’s awesome:
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2011/11/2011112872835904508.html
I totally agree with Marx’s analysis of capitalism too, just disagree with the solution obviously. I’ve just finished “reading” (listening to!) 1984 and Animal Farm, so really thinking of the problems of state socialist alternatives at the moment! But anyway, I’d like to go through Marx’s critique of capitalism on the show some time, plus talk about anarchism more, we definitely will eventually! In the meantime, I’ll check out the podcast you mentioned, thanks!
The Charlotte action you have planned sounds intense! Yeh it’s shocking what police get away with – in Australia someone was recently tased to death by police and we’ll talk about that on the next episode. The police are even worse with “toys” like that and I know things are even worse over in the U.S. I think that the police shouldn’t be seen as “above” anyone else and that their brutality shouldn’t be excused. But with your action – make sure you consider the potential consequences of your actions – doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it – just make sure you make the decision to do it once you’ve weighed up the point you want to make versus the consequences to yourself. Anyway, maybe we can have you on the show to talk about the action down the track – I’m trying to work out how to record interviews over Skype, I’m sure I’ll have it worked out by then!
As Katie said on the last episode, ‘fuck the state!’
Nick
Hey you guys, thank you for responding to my comment. I would absolutely love to come on your show, but I would first say that I am going to be organizing this action among the radicals in Asheville (where I am going to school in August). I am sure there will be a group of people going to Charlotte for the convention, so I don’t know yet how much support there would be for this action. This action is basically meant to question the legitimacy of police power, in other words why do the police have right to fire tear gas at me and I don’t have the right to fire tear gas at them. But I would also love to talk about Anarchism and Marxism on the show, if you end up having me on. Also, as a side note I do not have skype, but I don’t think that this will be too much of a problem, we can figure something out if I do end up coming on the show.
Love you guys, thanks
No worries Eric, would be great to have you on some time either way. We love interviewing activists on the show and we’ve had refugee activists, Occupy activists, animal rights activists (us!), environmental activists etc… on the show – so would be great to do an interview on anarchist activism some time! We can definitely work out some way to record it – I gotta figure that stuff out anyway.
All the best with your action, let us know how it goes – oh and also, thanks for the podcast recommendation, I really liked the episode and have shared it on our FB & Twitter pages =)
Thanks again for your support of the show,
Nick
“Now for something complete different”- About a day or so ago I found out about possibly the coolest thing ever, I know that you guys probably already know all about this but I just found out about Steampunk. It has made me so happy and I found out about this great band called “The men that will not be blamed for nothing.” They are very steampunk and they pretty much only talk about 1800’s stuff but what is crazy is that they are supposed to be radicals for that time and almost everything they talk about is still radical. They are so weird and they are so great, they have a song called “Mutiny in the common solidery” and “blood red” that are really anti-state and anti-imperialism. They also have amazing feminist songs like “free spirit” and “Goggles.” You guys should listen to them just because they are interesting and weird as well. You guys will love then, check them out.
Hi Eric – thanks for the recommendation, I am looking them up on youtube as we speak 🙂 They sounds awesome! Haha my only knowledge of steampunk is from this house I downloaded for the Sims: http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=413448
I had no idea steampunk and radical ideas could go together in music. Pretty awesome!
Katie
And the really cool thing is that Steampunk design and clothing is really a response to the blan and boring modern standardized design. If modern capitalism values profit and effiency, then Steampunk values beauty and uniqueness, and often times they create things that aren’t at all efficent, but are beautiful I quite love the sentiments expressed by this movement and I wanted to share my knowledge of it with you guys.
Chip, Chip, Sincerely, Eric
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