When the climate comes for you

Past sick sadistic tyrants made each victim dig their grave,

Mowed them down without mercy, in wave after wave.

But now heat is the trigger set for the many by the few

Will you be ready when the climate comes for you?

In Karachi they’ll be ready when the tide of death rolls in

When the poor and frail fall prey to the oil barons’ sin.

This time the corpses won’t lie rotting, morgues overfull anew –

Will you be ready when the climate comes for you?

Mass graves are dug as the local people wonder

Who will die and who, survive, the planetary plunder.

Will the very ones who dig the graves be swallowed by them too?

Will you be ready when the climate comes for you?

From the heatwave of South Asia to the drought of California,

First the scientists spoke up – now Mother Nature’s out to warn ya.

Burning coal and oil and gas, releasing all that CO₂,

Will you be ready when the climate comes for you?

A new epoch is upon us; climate chaos, the new normal.

As we strive to cope, we’d better make people’s power structures formal.

Bury this greed-driven system, before it buries you.

Will you be ready when the climate comes for you?

Oil giants, warmongers, banksters, you who profit from disasters,

We’re not content to count the dead, and have you stay as masters.

Grave-diggers for each other, or for the filthy illthy few?

Will you be ready when the people come for you?

Reference:

Reuters article 

100% renewable energy - needed now more than ever

As South Asia swelters through a record-breaking heatwave, with reports of hundreds of lives lost in India (on top of hundreds of farmer suicides this year owing to crop failures due to drought), a May 20 report by Reuters that Pakistanis were digging mass graves in preparation for heatwave-related deaths brings into sharp focus the grim situation we are in. Climate change is here, and the people of the underdeveloped nations least responsible for it are among those hardest hit and least able to withstand its impacts.

In August, geologists will decide whether to formally adopt the designation “Anthropocene” to mark the Earth having entered a new geological epoch. Whether or not they do, it’s a term that is in wide use among earth system scientists, owing to the impact human society is having, not just on local ecosystems, but on earth systems as a whole – biodiversity, chemical cycles, freshwater, land use, ocean acidity, climate and more.

As Ian Angus documents in his new book “Facing the Anthropocene,” humans’ impact on earth systems and in particular, climate, stem from the explosive growth in fossil fuel use driven by the US oil giants, car manufacturers and military, along with the growth in suburban living, road and shopping mall construction, and changing (fossil-fuel dependent) agricultural practices.

After the Pleistocene epoch with its recurring Ice Ages, in which humans first developed, it was the last 11,500 years, the warmer Holocene epoch, that made agriculture, fixed settlement and civilisation possible.

Graphic taken from ice-core data study by Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research

The determinants of global temperature and climate (in particular, greenhouse gas concentrations) have now reached levels beyond those of both the holocene and pleistocene, so that we are on course for a chaotic global climate regime outside anything we know for sure can support the agriculture on which most of the 7 billion humans now living depend.

Graphic from NASA http://climate.nasa.gov/climate_resources/24/

Whether or not it is possible to return to the relative climate stability of the holocene will depend on how quickly we can reduce our greenhouse gas emissions (mainly carbon dioxide and methane, but others too) to zero and remove the excess that has built up in the air and oceans.

To stabilise the climate, or failing that, to make the inbuilt inevitable climate changes slow enough to have a chance to minimise loss of life and social disruption, we need to treat climate change as the emergency it is and make a rapid transition away from fossil fuel use. Halting deforestation and increasing the amount of land that is covered by forests will be another essential component.

Environmental think-tank Beyond Zero Emissions produced a report in 2010 showing that using commercially available technology, Australia could transition to meet all our stationary power needs from renewable sources within a ten-year time-frame, for a cost of around $37 billion a year. Under the plan, 60% of electricity would come from concentrating solar thermal plants that allow the sun’s heat to be stored overnight and converted to electricity continuously; 40% from wind generators; and a small proportion from rooftop solar, existing hydro and burning crop residues to supply back-up when solar and wind wasn’t enough.

What this shows is that there is no technical reason to keep using fossil fuels for electricity generation.

More capital is invested in fossil fuel infrastructure than in any other industry, with a 2011 UN report estimating existing fossil fuel and nuclear power infrastructure at U$15-20 trillion, with big oil alone making over US$650 billion in profits between 2001 and 2008. The bulk of the global economy – from transport and construction to agrochemicals, synthetic textiles and the biggest single greenhouse gas emitter, the military – is dependent on cheap oil for power and on petrochemicals for inputs.

With the fossil fuel industry’s economic clout comes political power, and so far this political power has been used to resist every measure to curb fossil fuel extraction and use.

Rational argument by the world’s most informed scientists hasn’t been enough to convince the decision-makers of the coal, oil and gas giants to voluntarily stop holding a blow-torch to the planet; nor to persuade the political leaders of the LNP, ALP or Greens, to go beyond what is palatable.

It will take a groundswell of action by the majority – a mass movement of concerned people prepared to defend current and future generations from the devastation of run-away climate change – to break the power of the fossil fools over our economic and political life, to create a new grassroots democracy and to begin to make the transition to a sustainable economy based on renewable energy.

Socialist Alliance seeks to work with others to build such a grassroots, mass movement.

Originally published at Green Left Weekly.

Mad Fucking Witch Flashmob

For International Women's Day 2016, I was part of a group of women who performed a flashmob in and around Perth and Fremantle, WA.



Other videos of the flashmobs can be seen here, here and here.

Australia's offshore immigration detention centres are referred to as "black sites" by a group of researchers (http://researchersagainstpacificblacksites.org/) because of their lack of effective state oversight and accountability, and the impunity afforded those responsible for violence committed by those in charge. The facilities have come under scrutiny from numerous sources - from reports by asylum-seekers themselves - to activists, advocates and journalists - and whistle-blowing by former members of staff, to reports compiled by the United Nations, Amnesty International and Australian parliamentary enquiries.

Immigration ministers and other leading government figures' public statements have been exposed as lies. When it comes to violence, including sexual violence, against women and children, the minister was advised before women and children were sent to the Nauru centre that there was not adequate protection for them there. As reports began to emerge of assault and rape, the government's first response was denial and downplaying of the extent of the problem.

When government ministers speak of ending violence against women, we want to ensure that women Australia is responsible for - but which the government seems determined to keep out of sight and out of mind - are not forgotten. Rape culture and violence against women are an issue for everyone and much needs to be done in every domain of public and private life.  To be serious about ending violence against women, the mandatory detention of asylum seekers and refugees - unsafe for women, unsafe for anyone - must end, and asylum-seekers who make it to Australian territory must be provided with meaningful support while their claims for asylum are processed.

this is poetry

unlearning lessons, i'm shocked to find
counting beat and keeping time
iambic feet and stilted rhyme
that - that is not poetry.

with silent reading comes dissection
of mathematical perfection,
acceptance or rejection,
an intellectual exercise.

you speak your truth in pictures,
words wrapping themselves into my heart
where they lodge.

i see your thoughts in my mind,
know your pain in my skin, my depths.

your words are fists, hammering
on the brick walls of rape culture
inciting me to beat back
because together,
together,
together,
sisters, we will push it over.

this - this is poetry.

A response to this poem by Maddie Godfrey.

"Today, there are men organising rapes like birthday parties" I wrote this in response to the meetings of 'Return of Kings', a neo-masculine pro-rape organisation, that were scheduled for today.Thank you for listening xx
Posted by Maddie Godfrey - Poet on Saturday, February 6, 2016

https://www.facebook.com/maddiegodfreypoet/videos/924619557607551/

Tree

I don't know your story - 
who ever could?
all that I know is
you're more than just wood.

You sheltered bees
in a world where they're dying.
Now for your crime,
you're sentenced; I'm crying.

Cockatoos and galahs
shrieked - it seemed in dismay
at your pruning; but now this:
what will they say?

The hive hollowed you out
so in spite of your shade,
your sequestration

of CO₂ someone made,

what you give to the birds,

what you give to the bees,

you're being cut down

in the City-Bush squeeze.

They say not only might you

drop a limb on someone,

but you're in the way

of the badge, car and gun.

Constable Care, it seems,

needs more space,

and a driveway, a heat sink,

is taking your place.

I grieve at your falling,

mourn I could not stop it,

add my voice to those calling

A tree! Do not chop it!

Mad Fucking Witch

 

I'm a mad fucking witch, and there's a minister I hexed
For his everyday misogyny, not just that one text.
I'm a mad fucking witch, I'm angry to the core
As I shriek my words, I seek to settle a score.

Peter Dutton, you stand accused
Of failing to protect the women abused
In Australia's black sites for refugees
On the mainland, and overseas.

Women like "Abyan", pregnant from rape on Nauru.
You refused her abortion - what is she to do?
She is detained; her rapist is at large;
Just like you, he hasn't yet been charged.

Nazanin, who became suicidal,
Assaulted on Nauru. You did worse than stand idle.
You separated her from her family who loved her.
They wanted to be near, so they could support and hug her.

So many others, more than I can name,
Strip-searched by guards, forced to feel the shame,
The leering eyes, the threatening hands,
As they said they were looking for contraband.

Official abuse, you turn a blind eye,
You cover it up - or at least that's what you try.
But the truth is out - it wasn't just your text,
And this mad fucking witch knows what should happen next:

You should get the sack, and be made to stand trial
For failing to prevent these deeds so vile,
For failing to uphold the rights of detainees -
Of asylum-seekers and refugees -

For failing to protect those who've sought our care,
Who came the only way they could, by boat, not air.

I'm a mad fucking witch, enraged at what I see,
And I will fight till all the refugees are free.
 

Work like any other

This is a slightly edited piece I wrote as a contribution to an internal pre-conference discussion in the Australian Socialist Alliance, focused on understanding the nature of sex work and its relation to women's oppression. It forms part of a response to an argument that sex work is not work "like any other." Several other pieces were submitted to the written discussion (and there was lively - often overly personal - discussion on social media), taking up important faults in the original piece, and this was an attempt to address only one part of the discussion, what's at stake.

*********

Since no job is exactly like any other job, what are we really asking when we ask is sex work “work like any other”?

I think there are two important things that are being conveyed in the statement “sex work is work like any other work.”

The first is that sex work is work, not the sale or rental of the sex worker's body or self (any more than any other work constitutes the sale of the body or self). To indulge in the use of Marxist language, sex workers who work for a boss sell the commodity labour power, as do all wage-workers in a capitalist economy. Their labour power produces sexual services, a personal service commodity different from others in use value (as all commodities differ from each other in use value), but still a commodity like other personal services under capitalism. To skip the Marxist language and put it simply (which to be honest, I prefer), sex workers work for their living, like other wage-workers and self-employed people, and are not selling themselves but their ability to provide a sexual service of some kind(s) to their clients.

The second thing this slogan conveys follows from the first: since sex work is work like other work (and not the sale of self or body any more than any other kinds of work), violence, rape, objectification and disrespect are no more acceptable when directed towards sex workers than they are when directed towards any other workers in any other industry – whether by clients, bosses, police, intimate partners or random strangers.

Like all work in a capitalist economy, it exists in a society marred by sexism, homophobia, transphobia and racism, where workers are forced by economic need to enter the marketplace to be exploited for capitalist profit, in the course of which, they experience alienation. This context – of experiences of poverty and oppression – shapes and pervades sex work just as it does other work, it shapes the options available to sex workers like all workers. But it is not the cause of sexism, misogyny and the sexual objectification of women, any more than nursing or social work as professions are the cause of women being cast primarily in caring roles. The preponderance of women in each of these and other industries indicates what kind of roles are generally assigned to women in the gendered division of labour, but is not the primary cause of this division.

Like every phenomenon, this statement can be contradicted. As I began, every job is different from every other job, and sex work is also like this. Mining is different from teaching; dentistry is different from cleaning; sex work is different from working in a textile factory. All have distinct risks, forms that alientation takes, rewards, pressures to take part. Sex work is like other work in having distinct features. Unlike most work, sex workers are stigmatised; in many cases they or their clients are criminalised; because of the stigma attached to their work and the misogyny and transphobia in society at large, they are frequently the victims of violence, including sexual violence; because of the diversity of human experiences of sexuality, they may find the work itself harmful; they may be excluded from traditional forms of working class organisation like unions. In this, they face a particular form of oppression that makes their struggles for their rights at work harder.

Sex workers who are organising for their rights, in diverse countries with diverse laws, are finding this slogan a useful one for mobilising to organise for and assert their rights. Rather than clinging to a formulation and ways of labeling commercial sex and the workers in the industry that reinforce the stigma sex workers face, and the assumptions that clients, bosses, police and strangers are entitled to perform sexual acts to sex workers without their consent, socialists who wish to engage in solidarity should revisit their theoretical approach and use the formulations found by sex workers to be most useful in asserting their rights.

This approach can be likened to the campaign to end intimate partner violence – a campaign that doesn't locate the problems of intimate partner violence in the existence of intimate relationships, or heterosexuality, but which struggled/s to identify and assert that no matter the origin of marriage as an institution, women do not now accept being male property, and to identify that rape in marriage is a thing: that women don't lose their right to withhold consent to sex by virtue of getting married. In a similar way, locating sex work as work helps sex workers in the practical struggles to end criminalisation, stigmatisation, violence and the other barriers to living with safety and dignity.

A final point is the impact of getting this wrong.

We have developed our policy on solidarity with sex workers struggling for their rights in collaboration with sex workers who are members of the Socialist Alliance, and others from the main activist network of sex workers in Australia, Scarlet Alliance. The original discussion contribution was treated as problematic in many ways by these collaborators. Among the numerous issues raised by sex workers concerned about the piece were

• the fact that the arguments used to paint sex work as inherently bad for workers and different from all other work are the same ones that are used to justify criminalising it;
• the offensiveness and inaccuracy of saying that sex workers sell themselves/their bodies, necessarily feel a “loss of ownership of their bodies”
• the use of inaccurate arguments and characterisations that underpin the stigmatisation of sex workers

Sex workers are the ones who will fight for their rights, and they'll do it with or without socialists. Socialists are the natural allies of sex workers, since we are opposed to all sorts of exploitation and oppression, and of course we want a world in which sex workers and all workers, women, the LGBTIQA community, Aboriginal people, the poor and marginalised, have full rights and social inclusion. If our analysis and the language that flow from it put us on the opposite side of the barricades to sex workers in their struggles, they should be re-examined, and in this instance, rejected in favour of an approach that strengthens solidarity.

*****************

I would point people also to http://www.socialist-alliance.org/alliance-voices/policy-debate-sex-workers-rights, http://www.socialist-alliance.org/alliance-voices/sex-work-and-work-understanding-trafficking and http://www.socialist-alliance.org/alliance-voices/creating-culture-solidarity-sex-workers.