progressivepodcastaustralia

The image above is from Crimethinc.

This episode has been released in two parts. You can download part 1 of this episode on Media Fire here (49MB). You can listen to part 2 and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes here and you can also listen to part 2 on Cyber Ears here and Archive.org here (61MB).

In part one of this episode, we discuss the Australian federal election. We start off by discussing a letter Nick received from the Liberal Party and their “direct action green army“, their solar panel to solve all environmental problems and how they always explain their policies “so clearly” (when they’re not being racist and sexist). We also discuss Luc “getting involved” in the I’m Voting Liberal Campaign. We highlight the similarities between Labor and Liberal – the two major parties in Australia – on issues such as digital rights and asylum seekers. See our 5^th episode for an in-depth discussion on the similarities between these two parties.

The role of the minor parties is also covered. Family First have criticised The Sex Party – which makes us like The Sex Party a lot! We also argue that The Greens are not going anywhere any time soon, although Wikileaks preferences have not helped their cause in the Western Australian senate. Our friend Nathan may have worked out the reason behind these preferences – it involves football! Due to crappy preferences from many parties, we encourage people to work out your own how to vote card – see here for three sites where you can do this. We discuss all of the parties in our electorate and have created a Progressive Podcast “how to vote” for people to consider – you can view this here and please contact us before the election if you have any suggested changes. We encourage people to put progressive minor parties first, due to preferential voting in Australia, to oppose the “two-party system” which the mainstream media creates in Australia. Also mentioned were refugee advocate Julian Burnside’s recommendations for voting in this election, posters for the upcoming German election that we’ve seen around Berlin and Vego Foodworld vegan restaurant in Berlin.

We start off part two of the episode with the segment ‘What you HAVE learnt from Adbusters this week’, discussing the article ‘Barack Obama: The Hamlet President‘, from issue 108. Nick brags that he was right about Obama from the start (and you morons were all wrong :p) and John Pilger labels Obama ‘the Hopey Changey of western violence’. We discuss Obama’s broken promises (here’s more if you need them!), his policy on drones, the US political system and voting. We have the (long awaited?) return of the segment ‘When Karl Pilkington Makes Sense’, this time on voting. We discuss the similarities of Pilkington’s points with smarter people like Noam Chomsky (from the books Chomsky on Anarchism and Hegemony or Survival) and David Graeber (from Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology). We talk about “informal voting” in Australia and former Opposition Leader Mark Latham (in)famously encouraging people to vote with a blank ballot and a big rise in the number people voting “informally” in that election.

We finish the episode by arguing that voting can have some positive effect but we need to do more and there are plenty of other ways we can make change outside of the voting booth. We also argue that ideally we’d have direct democracy not parliamentary rule – check out our 29th episode (part 2) for more on anti-capitalism and anarchism. Also covered on part two is “dirty fucking usual Jon’s” rant about the Miley Cyrus “incident”, the anti-Russian queerphobia rally and Vegan Festival that we went to in Berlin (which featured hip hop artist Albino and the collective-run vegan store Roots of Compassion – see photos from the event here), and finally we talk about Indigenous people being attacked with a bomb in Australia, which the mainstream media mostly ignored – please share this story on Facebook and Twitter so it gets the attention it deserves!

This episode is brought to you by “B”. Check out her website here to find out more about veganism, atheism and feminism! Thanks a lot to B for becoming a member of our show – you can become a member and sponsor an episode too!

Clips (part 1):

Rap News ‘Australian Election: A Game of Polls’, Election 2013 – Day One, The Drugs ‘I Was a Teenage Voter’.

Clips (part 2):

Bill Hicks ‘Politics in America‘, Dead Prez (featuring Estelle) ‘Let the People be Heard’, Morrissey ‘Irish Blood, English Heart (live)‘, Lowkey ‘My Soul’, Lowkey ‘Obama Nation’, Lowkey ‘Skit 2’ – speech by Tariq Ali, Obama on the Daily Show, The Young Turks on Obama, Lowkey ‘Obama Nation (part 2)’, Bill Maher owned by Glenn Greenwald, John Lajoie ‘Miley, You’re A Good Girl‘, Ricky Gervais podcast with Karl Pilkington (series 2, part 1), George Carlin on voting, Family Guy ‘Establishment‘, Peep Show, Chumbawamba ‘Mr Heseltine Meets His Public’, Dead Prez on voting – from Democracy Now, Dead Prez ‘Politrikks‘.