I wasn’t going to post for Blog Action Day; to be honest, I was a little skeptical about the allusions in what this day could achieve.

I guess I still am. Everyone blogging about the environment isn’t going to convince assholes like George Bush and John Howard to become card-carrying greenies, although it’s pretty sickening to see these two pose as wanting to do something about the environment.

But I think the benefit of everyone blogging at once about the environment is the strength in numbers. It’d be great to saturate the internet and the Blogosphere with some fucking politics. But the problem with online activism has always been that it stops online. You can’t change the world from your computer. They key is to use this momentum as a driving force and get out and do something! And I will come to this later.

But firstly, my motivation for posting today is the need to say what most other environmentalists will not say. There is a need to place the blame for fucking the environment squarly at the feet of big business and the whole capitalist system. The reason the environment is going the way it is, is because we live in a system where the rich assholes that rule us only care about making profits.

The state of the environment is not due to too many people, apathetic people or greedy people. In fact, workers are the key to saving the environment and it isn’t through taking shorter showers. Greens leader, Bob Brown, summmed up the position of most environmentalists when he spoke at the Walk Against Warming rally in Sydney last year. He said we need to tighten our belts. He said ordinary people need to use less and pay more and that is the solution. He blamed ordinary people from ruining the environment. And this is where the environmental movement fails.

The majority of waste and destruction is due to big business and industry. Shorter showers means nothing when Roxby Downs Uranium mine in South Australia uses 30 million litres of water a day. And to add insult to injury, the government has not only exempted them from water restrictions, but this water is free. In the midst of a drought, they make us use less to look like they’re taking some action, but of course, all the important stuff like Uranium keeps on raking in the mega-bucks.

Oh, and their solution to energy? Nuclear power. Sure, an energy source reliant on high amounts of water, uses more carbon emissions during contruction than it reduces, and as an added bonus, they get to use the waste to make more bombs. Wow, Howard sure is loving the environment.

And where do the Liberals and Labor stand on the Tasmanian pulp mill? They’re with it all the way. Nothing to do with Gunns donating lots of money to their parties of course, or just the fact that they’re running the system for companies like Gunns. You just have to have witnessed Peter Garrets shift since he joined the ALP. It seems a career in the Labor party comes before values.

But how do we actually fix the environment then? Well, there a numerous examples of workers actually forcing change onto governments. Howard and Rudd can’t be convinced to support fixing the environment because it’s not in their interests because it’s stopping them from making uber-profits. As the mining workers in the 60s showed, workers can force change through their labour power.

Transport workers refused to load the carriages of Uranium, Construction workers refused to build the infrastructure to get the mining towns running, and wharfies refused to transport or move it on the docks. I’d like to see the executives of BHP and Rio Tinto try and do all of that themselves. Those execs want to ruin the environment so they could make a heap of money off of uranium mining but the point is they couldn’t because workers do action to stop it. This isn’t something you can do from your computer.

Blog Action Day represents this growing outrage at what is happening the environment, whether it be Global Warming, Nuclear power and weapons or in Australia, the water crisis. Thanks to blogging, ordinary people have a medium to express their own thoughts on this and not just the thoughts of the established media, who are on the wrong side of capitalism. Rupert Murdoch is no greenie, that’s for sure.

But we need to go beyond rants on our blogs. We need to take action. And for Australians, we’re heading towards an opportunity to do just that. Howard’s going down in the election in 5-6 weeks time and two weeks before the election on November 11, is Walk Against Warming. Not only is it a chance to get out and protest about the environment and global warming, but everything Howard stands for. So, don’t just blog, protest!

Blog Action Day, Walk Against Warming, Environment, Global Warming, Nuclear, Water, capitalism

From smh.com.au

AN AUSTRALIAN security firm has sparked outrage in Iraq after its contractors killed two Iraqi women and injured two others in an attack on a car in a busy Baghdad street.

And this is following the outrageous actions of the US mercenary corporation, Blackwater which is part of this push to corporatize Imperialist adventures because the main issue is these people aren’t accountable at all. They can’t be tried to the Iraqi government or their home countries. They occupy this legal grey area, which I can assure you was no oversight.

This is all in the face of the unpopularity of the war in both the U.S. and Australia; These corporations are removed from the political accountability of the mass of people that were forced to vote in the assholes officially rampaging around the Middle-East. These corporations can’t be voted out, but really this is the least the government could be worried about. But the government can use this groups, like Blackwater, to do all the really dirty work and expect to have clean hands from this. This is why we need a huge anti-war movement that can make real demands, including repealing funding to private armies, after all, it’s our money they’re using to slaughter Iraqi civilians.

And this opposition is boiling over and it’s crying for some kind leadership to build a movement. Of course, the Democrats and the ALP are not going to lead the anti-movement we want, which is troops out now! And not some psuedo-anti-war policy of staged withdrawals and movements to other ‘theatres’ to appear to be anti-war.

This movement can only come from the ground. This war has gone on for far too long, but it’s getting worse. Private armies rampaging around doing what they like and we just had a soldier killed in Afghanistan. We bloody need to fight to get rid of this.

Iraq, Afghanistan, Bush, Howard, Blackwater, antiwar

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Bush’s welcome, originally uploaded by bsolah.

Around 200 Protesters gathered at Railway Square last night to give the rotten warmonger, George Bush, the welcome he deserves. The protest also criticized the police for trying to block our right to protest on Saturday.

At least, I thought we didn’t live in a police state. But it seems the police are taking the Stop Bush coalition to court to stop the protest from happening on Saturday at Town Hall.

This is a disgrace.

They say we live in a democracy, but democracies come with the right to protest. And where is our right? It’s taken away so Howard and Bush can pretend there’s no opposition to their crimes. They want to lie to the rest of the world and pretend they’re loved here.

They’re not. There’s mass opposition to the policies of Howard and Bush whether it’s the War in Iraq, WorkChoices, Hurricane Katrina, Climate Change…the list goes on and on.

These are the violent world leaders. They’re the ones responsible for all the violence in this world. We’ve called a peaceful protest, because we’re not the ones with blood on our hands.

All the talk of violent protests and violent police repression is just intimidation. They’re trying to scare people out of protesting.

So demand your right to demonstrate and turn up on Saturday, Town Hall at 10am.

APEC, Bush, Howard, protest

Howard said today via a YouTube video, “I simply ask them to stop for a moment and consider that if they really are worried about issues such as poverty, security and climate change, then they should support APEC, not attack it.”

Bullshit. No way.

APEC will do nothing to fix the problems of poverty, ‘security’ and climate change. And you just need to look at the main players this year to see this, Bush and Howard.

Howard and Bush have been responsible for making poverty worse, not just in other countries, but to their own fucking population. Look at WorkChoices. How does passing legislation that slashes people’s wages make poverty any better? How does abandoning Hurricane-raviged New Orleans help the rechid poverty there? Do you honestly think Howard and Bush, masterminds of the War in Iraq, have any interest in helping the poverty-striken countries of the pacific?

Bullshit. No way.

And who ever said we were protesting about security? Security for whom? They’re spending millions of our taxpayer dollars on protecting war criminals behind a wall reminscent of the one on the Gaza strip. Just ask anyone who’s Muslim or Arab about what Bush and Howard have done in the name of security and the ‘War on Terror.’ Security to them means racist harassment from police and the media. We don’t need to be protected from Muslims or Arabs. We need to be protected from our own government. Just as well they’re keeping all the terrorists in the Opera House during the summit.

And climate change? Anyone believe that Bush and Howard are newly discovered hippies? I don’t think so. These guys are going to sit around a table and talk about how they can make a buck out of ordinary people’s genuine desire to do something about the environment. And what’s their solution? Nuclear power. Sure, radioactive material that we have no way of disposing of. And I suppose a nuclear holocaust will prevent us from ruining the environment anymore.

APEC is nothing but a party for war criminals and crooks at our expense. I’d tell you that Bush should go home and take Howard with him, but the people of the U.S. don’t want them there either. But you should come and protest against Bush, Howard and APEC. We’re having a PEACEFUL protesting on Saturday, 10am at Town Hall. It’s going to be big and we’re going to give this warmonger the welcome he deserves.

APEC, protest, Bush, Howard, Iraq, Environment, Sydney