Category: Social Reproduction

Living The Dream with a Climate Emergency, COVID-19 and The Australian State

Cartoon by Alan Hardman

In this episode of Living The Dream Dave (@withsobersenses) talks with Anna Sturman (@anna_sturman) author of ‘Climate Emergency’, COVID-19 and the Australian capitalist state . Anna draws on the work of Nicos Poulantzas to present an understanding of the state, a diagnosis of the contemporary conjuncture of Australian capitalism and suggest ways that we can struggle for dignity and lives worth living.  We talk through the possibilities of the present, the opportunities for creating and using power and cut the Gordian Knot of  the great debate of 2019 – Jobs Guarantee or Universal Basic Income.

Music by Chumbawamba

Listen here:

and subscribe

0

Living The Dream with a Green New Deal

In this episode of Living The Dream Jon (@JonPiccini) and Dave (@withsobersenses) catch up with Tash Heenan (@tashellenheenan) and Jeremy Poxon (@JeremyPoxon) to discuss the Green New Deal. Jon, Tash and Jeremy are partisans of the Green New Deal, seeing it as a way of addressing immediate concerns and opening pathways to more radical transformations whilst Dave remains something of a half-reformed ultra-left curmudgeon who can do nothing more than yell ‘but the value-form’ at worried passer-bys.

We chat about what a Green New Deal may or may not be, if it is an attempt to save or destroy capitalism, its relationship or not with creating communism, the hard limits the environmental crisis imposes, the disappearance of the commons as a concept, and a whole lot more.

Listen here

Or Subscribe

Writings we reference include:

Australia Needs A Green New Deal, Not More Centrism

We need a Blak New Deal to fight the climate crisis

A Red Deal

Three Ways a Green New Deal Can Promote Life Over Capital

Responsible minerals sourcing for renewable energy

Trade Unions for Energy Democracy

Between the Devil and the Green New Deal

Music by Meatraffle

0

Living The Dream with Acid Communism and/or Acid Corbynism

In this episode Dave (@withsobersenses) chats with Keir Milburn (@KeirMilburn ). Keir is from Leeds and has been an anti-state communist for a respectable amount of time (and is an all round good egg). Previously a member of Class War and the Leeds May Day Group/ The Free Association he is now part of Plan C. Recently he has been trying to think through how anti-capitalists can related to the rise of Corbyn and the return of social democracy. We talk through the arguments and deal with some of the critiques. He has a new book Generation Left out now.

(Due to human error my vocals sound a bit shit)

Listen here :

Or Subscribe:

Some stuff we mention includes

Acid Corbynism is a gateway drug

Class War is Dead… Long Live The Class War

On Social Strikes and Directional Demands

Turbulence: What would it mean to win

What can an institution do? Towards Public-Common partnerships and a new common-sense

0

6 thoughts written in Brisbane on Gilets Jaunes

FRANCE-SOCIAL-POLITICS-ENVIRONMENT-OIL-PROTEST

 

  1. Now huge upsurges of popular protest arrive as a shock, are full of messy contradictions and sit outside of the certainties of the historical Left and Workers movement.
  2. The stratifications that exists amongst the people are both active and present in these explosions and can be challenged and subverted by the encounters going on in the streets.
  3. The methods of struggle aim to block capital not at the site of production but at the choke points of circulation.
  4. The post-2011 radical social democratic projects appear on the wrong side of the barricades.
  5. These upsurges expose the lack of space the state has to offer a new set of reformist policies.
  6. A completely different way of organising social life is an immediate need.

 

Many excellent reports and discussions on Gilets Jaunes can be found at ediciones ineditos

0

Living The Dream with the National Disability Insurance Scheme

behind closed doors

In this episode Dave (@withsobersenses) chats with Vanamali Hermans (@VChristabel) about the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS). Whilst billed as ‘the most significant economic and social reform since the introduction of Medicare in the 1970s’ Vanamali shows how the NDIS often means the reduction in services for those with disabilities and bureaucratic hellishness. We discuss why this is so, the compounding issue of inequality in regional health delivery and the struggles and strategies both developing and possible. This is the first of possibly a few episodes on the NDIS.

Due to incurable idiocy Dave’s levels are still too low. (Sorry)

Listen here: Download this episode (right click and save)

or subscribe

 

Articles mentioned incomed:

Vanamali Hermans

Tim Lyons:

 

Precarias a la Deriva

1

Living The Dream Amidst A Non-Binding Postal Survey On Same-Sex Marriage

bridge banner
Weird-arse banner dropped off the M1 near Logan

Australia is currently in the midst of a non-binding postal survey on same-sex marriage and it seems likely that the ‘Yes’ vote will win by a massive majority. Yet the ‘Left’ and supporters of same-sex marriage seem miserable and downcast about this. In this episode Simon Copland (@SimonCopland) helps Jon (@jonpiccini) and Dave (@withsobersenses) make sense of it all. We talk about the role that homophobia and sexuality plays in capitalism, the histories of Queer struggles within neoliberalism, and how certain sections of the Yes campaign have internalised a pessimistic perspective about people and democracy. We finish on a high-note about what the expected resounding Yes vote will mean for Australian society and the possibility of further struggles. This episode starts with Dave mispronouncing Simon’s name.

Listen here Download this episode (right click and save)

or

Subscribe

 

Writers and articles we mention include:

 Wendy Brown – States of Injury

 Dennis Altman – Homosexual: Oppression and Liberation

 Melinda Cooper – Family Values

 
Sarah Schulman The Gentrification of the Mind

Music by Bob. B Soxx and the Blues Jeans and by Dark Blue

 

 

 

 

1

Living the Dream whilst fighting for your #righttothecity

west-village
Protest at West Village Picture: Jack Tran

In a special episode of Living The Dream, Max and Natalie (@DrNatOsborne) join Jon (@JonPiccini) to discuss radical happenings in Brisbane of late. We talk about the election of Jonathon Sri in the Brisbane City Council elections of last year, why Brisbane is experiencing such a strong wave of ‘right to the city’ activism and how these two interconnect. Musings on the interconnections between social movements and elections, the global and the local and culture and politics abound.

Listen here: Download this episode (right click and save)

or subscribe

South Brisbane Greens – https://www.facebook.com/SouthBrisbaneGreens/
Right to the City Brisbane – https://www.facebook.com/righttothecitybrisbane/
tactical urbanism – http://tacticalurbanismguide.com/
Warriors of the Aboriginal Resistance – https://www.facebook.com/WARcollective/
Jonathon Sri, Councillor for the Gabba – https://www.facebook.com/jonno.sri/
Henri Lefebvre – https://chisineu.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/lefebvre-henri-writings-on-cities.pdf

Music by the Mouldy Lovers – which was the painfully obvious choice.

1

Four female members of ILGWU Local 221 drinking coffee as they picket
Kheel Center Four female members of ILGWU Local 221 drinking coffee as they picket https://www.flickr.com/photos/kheelcenter/5279669440 CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

In this episode of Living The Dream, Dave (@withsobersenses ) chats with Carmen about the Workplace Organising 101 training she recently provided in Brisbane. Carmen talks about the purpose and structure of this training, its relationship to anarcho-syndicalism and reflects critically on the contribution it can play to developing our collective power and overcoming capitalism.

Organisations mentioned include:

Brisbane IWW

Freie Arbeiterinnen- und Arbeiter-Union (FAU)

Music by Dolly Parton and Marianne Faithful

Listen here: Download this episode (right click and save)

Or subscribe:

2

Ergon workers defy Qld ALP’s Debt Action Plan

bundaberg workers strike

On the 20th January workers at Ergon Bundaberg Depot walked off their jobs in protest at proposed plans to cut positions and increase outsourcing. This followed a similar action in Atherton the previous Friday. Whilst this industrial action has received little news coverage it is of incredible importance. It is the articulation of a group of workers’ collective self-interest in a way that actually points to the deep flaws in the ALP state government’s attempt to manage the challenge of funding social reproduction and honouring the state’s debts (in the context of the end of the mining boom which is a symptom of the Global Recession). What this struggle shows us is that under the layers of mystification debt is ultimately about class struggles: debt hinges on the struggle between the ability of capital to secure the future of its profits via the imposition of work and discipline today and our collective ability to refuse it and assert our dignity and desires.

Continue reading “Ergon workers defy Qld ALP’s Debt Action Plan” →

2

Living the Dream: Welfare, Social Reproduction and Social Impact Bonds

SIB-Feature

 

In this episode Dave (@withsobersenses) and Rob talk about how the provision of welfare and social services are changing. We chat about the concept of social reproduction, the welfare state and its evolution and critically investigate new developments. As the mining boom ends, the world teeters on a the edge of another economic meltdown and states struggle with increasing amounts of debt we ask what’s going on with welfare and how can we struggle on this terrain in ways that point to a better life and a better society.

Download this episode (right click and save)

or

Material referred to includes:

Multi-million dollar ‘green bonds’ could fund Qld’s climate change strategy

 

Competition Policy Review

 

Global Social Impact Investment Steering Group

 

Delivering On Impact: The Australian Advisory Board Breakthrough Strategy To Catalyse Impact Investment

 

Back ground on Debt and Social Reproduction can be found at Australia you’re standing in it part 2: Debt & Social Reproduction

An earlier show on the struggle of No Shelter! A Collective Against Gendered Violence can be found here

Everyone should read this issue of Viewpoint on Social Reproduction.

 

For an inspiring historical of the unemployed struggling over the conditions of welfare see The WOW factor: Wollongong’s unemployed and the dispossession of class and history

 

And listen to this killer track by Mutant Death (which features an on air argument between the scumbag Bob Hawke and dear comrade and friend Nick)

 

0

Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com.

Up ↑