My first No Illusions podcast for 2010! Today I’m talking about the Australian Government’s “clean feed” with three guys who know a lot more about it than I do: Stephen Collins (@trib), Peter Black (@peterblackQUT) and Jim Stewart (@jimboot). This episode was recorded with a live studio audience. Well, okay, they weren’t in a studio, they were on my uStream channel, but I’ve always wanted to say that.
We just got back from the first Brisbane meetup around #nocleanfeed. It was a pretty huge turnout, I’d guess 100 people. Well done to @nicholasperkins and everyone else involved in pulling it together.
I gave a short talk, mostly trying to convey the idea that this isn’t a campaign that we will win by trying to be RIGHT. This isn’t about FACTS. This is a propaganda war about ideology, the ideology of the Christian Right, a group that Conroy, Rudd, Abbott and Fielding are all card-carrying members of. And you can’t fight a propaganda war by trying to be RIGHT. The only way to fight a propaganda war is to counter it with your own propaganda and by knowing how propaganda campaigns actually work. There’s no use taking a knife to a gun fight.
As a long-time student of people like Chomsky and Pilger, I have some understanding about how modern propaganda works. I quote tonight from 20th century French philosopher and Christian theologian (not often you’ll catch me using a Christian theologian to make a positive point) Jacques Ellul who explained that modern propaganda isn’t telling lies, it’s about telling half truths, limited truths and truths out of context. That’s what Conroy et al are master of. They don’t lie when they talk about the feed, they just limit their use of the truth.
So we need to fight a propaganda war. Fortunately, we are all very-savvy little new media / social media types, so this shouldn’t be too hard to do, as long as know what kind of fight we’re getting into.
The one idea that I didn’t have time to get across tonight was that I don’t think we can win this if we just focus on the mandatory filter. It’s too thorny an issue and too easy for Conroy to deflect criticism . I believe we need to make this a battle against the ALP. I believe we need to focus on weakening their credibility in the upcoming election by getting in their faces on a range of issue where they have either under-performed, such as the environment, indigenous welfare, immigration, etc, or where they have just flat-out turned out to be as bad or worse than Howard (the internet filter, bailing out the banks, failing to rein in corporate executive salaries, etc).
We need a campaign that attacks the ALP’s credibility and performance across the board. We need put pressure on then across multiple fronts, not just on the filter. It’s pretty clear that the mainstream media will give them an easy ride in the upcoming election. So it’ll be up to social media to put the heat on them.
I’m reading the Australian government’s CPRS white paper tonight and there are some issues that I don’t understand.
In the Foreword, the paper says:
“… we have more to lose than any other developed nation if the world fails to reduce the carbon pollution that causes climate change.”
Wow, we better take it seriously then.
A couple of pages down, it goes on to say:
“By 2020, we have committed to reduce Australia’s carbon pollution by up to 15 per cent below 2000 levels in the context of a global agreement where major economies agree to substantially restrain carbon pollution and advanced economies take on reductions comparable to Australia.”
“Where major economies agree?” And what if they DON’T agree? We will do nothing? I thought this was serious?!
In debates on Twitter, people have tried to explain to me that it’s about balancing our long-term priorities (eg staying alive) with our short-term priorities (eg keeping people in jobs that are threatening our ability to stay alive).
I don’t see why we should be protecting the jobs of people when those jobs are threatening our ability to LIVE. That’s like protecting the jobs of the terrorists because, well, they have families too.
Mining in Australia employs about 129,000 people. That’s about 1.3% of the work force. If we shut down mining and pensioned them all off with $100k a year, that’s about $10 billion a year, which, coincidentally, is about the same about of money the government has set aside for financial assistance to businesses and households anyway. So it’s not inconceivable to just shut it all down today.
Anyway, that’s not my point. My point is that you can’t justify continuing to do something that’s just WRONG by saying “yes but it makes money”. For example, slavery is profitable. But we don’t do that anymore (officially, anyway). We also don’t invade poor countries and kill all of their indigenous population and steal their assets (officially, anyway). Why not? Because it’s WRONG. And it’s NOT justified by saying “but we need to stay competitive”. It’s not dissimilar to countries developing nuclear weapons with the rationale that “they have them so we have to have them too”. I call BULLSHIT on that argument.
I would much rather see the leaders of our country stand up for doing what is RIGHT regardless of whether nor not other countries are willing to take that step. We should be LEADERS, not bureaucrats.
As for the mining companies – I don’t feel the need to protect their asses, either. They’ve had plenty of warning that what they were doing was unsustainable. And how much of their BILLIONS of profits did they spend on coming up with alternatives over the last 20 years? Pretty much ZERO. Did their investors force them at their AGMs to change their practices? No, they didn’t. So screw the mining companies AND their investors. Why should we protect the interests of companies that have been deliberately destroying the planet in the name of profit for decades?
Hell, even Bob Hawke understands.
Episode 1 of the new show!
The No Illusions Podcast examines the truth about how we’re living our lives.
Today’s guest is Fiona Patten, the founder of The Australian Sex Party. That’s a political party, not a tupperware party. And they are SERIOUS. They have a great set of policies that I endorse, including ending the internet filter and holding a Royal Commission into child sexual abuse by religious institutions. They have two candidates in upcoming elections and Fiona herself is running for Peter Costello’s old seat of Higgins in Victoria. Fiona is running against the Greens Candidate – THE Clive Hamilton, architect of the Rudd Govt’s evil internet filtering plan.
Keep up to date on their progress by following the Aust Sex Party on Twitter.
A lesson in the power of having a network for those people who still snort when you mention Twitter (who are, I’m sure, the same people who still snort when you mention climate change).
About a year ago, I dropped my Macbook Pro – twice. Both times I was traveling and the shoulder bag I had it in slipped off of my shoulder while I was wheeling several suitcases around France. The result of the drops was pretty severe damage to the case of the Macbook. It still worked fine, it was just dinged up pretty badly. Until recently. A few weeks ago, I stopped being able to shut the case properly and then the piece of plastic that holds the screen in the lid cracked and broke.
I knew it was time for a new Macbook case.
So, I emailed photos to a couple of local Macbook repair places.
The folks at Next Byte were completely useless. All they could tell me was “you’ll have to bring it in for us to look at it”. If I had time to bring it in, I wouldnt have bothered sending photos, you useless morons.
The folks at The Mac Doctors in Annerley, were, as always, very polite, friendly and helpful. They emailed me back a quote – $2500 – and explained why it would cost so much (the screen comes with the case, no way around it) and suggested I’d probably be better off buying a new Macbook.
Instead, I posted a question on Twitter: “Does anyone have a dead Macbook Pro 17″ they’d be willing to sell me?”
Within an hour I had three “yes” replies. Adrian Lynch was the first and after a quick phone call, we’d negotiated a deal. I put the money in his account and had a courier pick up his dead machine (he’d drown his keyboard in wine).
Yesterday, when his dead unit turned up at my place, I took it into The Mac Doctors and today I picked up my perfectly good Macbook Pro – my drive and motherboard stuffed into Adrian’s old case and screen.
Total cost, including his unit, the courier and the hatchet job?
A little less than $500.
The power of Twitter.