blogs

Communist philosopher Anthony Hayes has written an good anti-Warhol blog as the blockbuster exhibition continues at the Brisbane Gallery of Modern Art this week (23/1/2008).

http://antyphayes.blogsome.com/2008/01/09/p18/

I added a comment:

I thought Ant was clear — I had more problems understanding the relevance of the divisions Patrick raised [this refers to the previous comment on the blog site pasted above, though my comment here should make sense even if you do not go to that blog]. To show why a short comment may be useful.

Taken as an entirety, Warhol’s praxis is thought to engage with the market in a clever and appealing manner. Aware of the influence of pop culture, like ‘his’ Velvet Underground or later The Ramones etc, Warhol as artist and person then became an icon for those who are attracted to a cultural alternative to the mainstream. He is taken to be important to “counterculture,” and shares the appeal that counterculture understandably posseses. Thus in Queensland the Warhol exhibition was opened by figures like Robert Forster of the Go-Betweens, a band that began in a scene opposed to Sir Joh’s conservative vision of post-war Australian society.

Do not vote for Holly Kemp

Holly Kemp is running for the position of secretary with the leftwing Catalyst group in the coming UQ St Lucia student elections. Voters should know that she misrepresents students if she thinks it is in her interest to do so, and that she does indeed think it is in her interest to do so.

At the 2006 SOS (Students of Sustainability) conference Holly Kemp misrepresented my friends and I.

We were interested in campus activism at the 2006 SOS. The main target of this activism was to be campus militarism such as the scramjet program at UQ and Boeing sponsorship at St Lucia. We wrote a leaflet that argued it is irrational to develop military technology when there are other technologies that could benefit from resources currently allocated to the military, and when these other technologies could help us address (for e.g.) environmental concerns. Our recommendation was that we demand more R&D funding for (inter alia) renewable energy, while also pursuing the abolition of research projects into hi-tech weapons. The leaflet took up the counter-argument that investment in militarism is desirable in order to deter attackers, for instance scramjet tech supposedly may have anti-ballistic applications. However leaflet argued the best way to prevent of war is an international peace movement, and that such a movement is incompatible with deterrence (for a copy: s200408@student.uq.edu.au).

Something worth checking out for those of a left leaning.
here

This week the H government introduced a draft citizenship test for immigration applicants that I reckon most Aussies would be hard pressed to answer. In addition, it is a profound insult to the heritage of Australian indigenous people ignoring as it does the 60,000 years + of non-white, non-european settlement prior to Cook and his imperialist buddies and it pays absolutely no heed to Australia's rich social and ecological history outside of white-man's politics.

Ironically, the test, says Minister for the Harassment of People Foolish Enough to Want to Immigrate To Australia, will not have any power to prevent people becoming Australians. Why have the contentious thing then?

Our system of government can't be called true democracy when most of us only get to have a say in public process once every three years or so in elections. Given that massive flaw in representative democracy, nowhere is government more particpatory (outside of an anarchist commune!) than in local government. Most of the community realises that - in local government you are more likely to be able to have an effect on decision making than in a bigger, more distant government.

A good example is perhaps the Leichardt Shire Council in central coastal Queensland. Leichardt Council encompasess Yeppoon as it's major centre and lies adjacent to Rockahmpton Shire Council further inland. During recent years Leichardt has been dubbed the 'Peace Shire' due to the number of peace advocates that have emerged from the community in response to the escalation of U.S. invovled war manourvers in their back yards. During the 2007 Peace Convergence the local community, supported by hundreds of vistors from around Australia, succeeded in making a great public show of their desires for the community - a non-militarised, environmentally and personally safe and non-toxic environment for humans and the unique wildlife of the area. They convinced the Leichardt Shire Council to vote in an anti-nuclear policy and the mayor of Yeppoon, Bill Ludwig, agreed that he would rather see their natural areas used for tourism as a national park than war games.

Two participants in the recent Peace Convergence against militarism at Shoalwater Bay, have just faced court in Rockhampton.

They had been charged by the Qld police with "public nuisance" and "wilful interference with a mobile vehicle" and faced court for these charges last Friday, 13 July.

They received these charges after they locked-on to a USA military truck, that was travelling down the Bruce Highway, towards the Rockhampton military barracks, on Sunday 24th June.

The truck pulled up at a set of lights, when 'Glen' and 'Ben' rushed the truck and locked onto the axle, with the support of numerous other peace activists.

On Tuesday 3/7/2007 SBS aired Naama Pyritz’s "Bahais in my Backyard." Pyritz worked through her misgivings about the Bahia faith, a more recent religion based in Israel and with connections to Islam. What was interesting that Pyritz invoked the ghost of Dr David Kelly.

"Kelly (May 17, 1944 – July 17, 2003) was an employee of the United Kingdom Ministry of Defence (MoD), an expert in biological warfare, and a former United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq. Kelly's discussion with Today programme journalist Andrew Gilligan about the British government's dossier on weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq inadvertently caused a major political scandal. He was found dead days after appearing before the Parliamentary committee charged with investigating the scandal...The Hutton Inquiry, a public inquiry into the circumstances surrounding his death, ruled that he had committed suicide.... [However many believe] that the official account of suicide was implausible because the means Kelly was said to have chosen is an unlikely and ineffective means of suicide … [and] that the most likely cause of death was murder." (Wikipedia entry)

Local residents in Byfield have said that hundreds, possibly thousands, of different species of birds and bats have died in the Byfield area over the past week.

The mass die-off began about one week following the live bombings in Shoalwater Bay by the Australian and USA military. These bombings are part of 'Operation Talisman Sabre', the largest joint war games since the Vietnam War. The designated bombing area is immediately north of Byfield.

The live bombings practise various tactics, such as 'ship-to-shore', and test various munitions, such as white and red phosphorous bombs and munitions containing perchlorate.

During the recent Peace Convergence, I've heard a few comments in support of Operation Talisman Sabre amd the Shoalwater Bay military base. Below are my responces to some of them.

1] They need somewhere to train.

This is probably the most common argument in favour of ‘Operation Talisman Sabre’ and Shoalwater Bay military base. They (joint USA and Australian military) only need somewhere to train if Australia intends to follow the USA around the globe on various campaigns of aggression and neo-colonialism. I’d say Australia should stop doing this also, which would remove the need to train at Shoalwater Bay. New Zealand doesn’t have a ‘Shoalwater Bay style’ military base, and they aren’t in any danger. Actually they are probably safer for it.

It was interesting to find Jello Biafra in Don Letts’ 90 min doco on punk (aired Tuesday 5/6th/2007 on ABC 2) claiming that Kurt Cobain had a influence on the Seattle anti-WTO riots in 1999.

The band Nirvana has inspired rebellion (e.g. the early 90s mini-riot in Canberra, when fans debarred entry ripped open a section of the ANU venue and got in to see the band). Of course it is also true Cobain himself was a bit of a mess; his lifestyle would have prevented him from being a very effective activist. In fact it has often been remarked how conservative heroin users tend to become — or already are. So given the context of the interview I take Biafra’s point to be not so much that Cobain himself was an effective rebel, but the band, and more than that, the zine and music scene in Seattle from the later 1980s on, were conducive to rebellion.