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Day 26 April, 2009

Entries 3 Total

Shattering the myth of egalitarianism in Australia (and NZ)

Apr 26, ’09 12:56 PM

Boris Frankel in Melbourne’s The Age:

Here is some good news. Just as the Great Depres­sion inspired sig­ni­fic­ant social reforms, so the cur­rent “great world reces­sion” is pro­du­cing a spate of over­due reform pro­pos­als. Some of these pro­pos­als have emerged in Bri­tain, one of the most unequal soci­et­ies in the developed world. While Aus­tralia ranks as the fourth most unequal developed soci­ety after the US, Por­tugal and Bri­tain, there is wide­spread delu­sion among Aus­trali­ans that we are an egal­it­arian soci­ety. By con­trast, 80 per cent of people in Brit­ish sur­veys believe that class divi­sion — or birth not worth — determ­ines a child’s life chances.

I think there’s prob­ably wide­spread delu­sion among New Zeal­anders too when it comes to see­ing their soci­ety as egal­it­arian. It used to be for sure, but since the Labour and National party usered in free-market fun­da­ment­al­ism in the 80s New Zea­l­and, too, has become one of the most unequal developed soci­et­ies in the world. One more reason not to vote for Labour or National.

External links:

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UK police’s use of “kettling” to be legally challenged

Apr 26, ’09 11:12 AM

Bind­mans, a Lon­don law firm, is pre­par­ing to launch a legal chal­lenge against the UK police’s use of ket­tling:

Bind­mans is … pre­par­ing to launch a legal chal­lenge against the use of “ket­tling”, the police tac­tic used to pen in 5,000 people dur­ing the G20 protests and a strategy which led to pro­test­ers suf­fer­ing asthma and panic attacks. John Halford, a part­ner in Bind­mans, said that the firm had held talks with Cli­mate Camp legal advisers on Fri­day to pre­pare to launch a judi­cial review against the con­tain­ment of protesters.

Halford said that “ket­tling” is leg­ally jus­ti­fi­able only when there is no altern­at­ive to address actual or immin­ent viol­ence. He said: “There is much to sug­gest that ‘ket­tling’ was the first thing resor­ted to as a response to a peace­ful demon­stra­tion that was con­sidered a nuis­ance by the police. Worse, many pro­test­ers have repor­ted unpro­voked baton charges and other forms of intim­id­a­tion while they were penned in. We plan to ensure all of this is examined by the courts.”

I’ve exper­i­enced ket­tling before as part of a peace­ful demon­stra­tion in 2003 against the world’s largest arms trade fair, DSEi, held every other year at East London’s ExCeL Centre. I spent most of my time in the kettle try­ing to explain par­ti­cip­at­ory eco­nom­ics to the police. An enga­ging lot to be sure.

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“What is the difference between Zionism and racism?”

Apr 26, ’09 10:30 AM

Jeremy Pax­man: What is the dif­fer­ence between Zion­ism and racism?

Peter Gooder­ham: Well we see the two as being quite dis­tinct, um, Zion­ism is clearly a …

Jeremy Pax­man: Yeah what’s the difference?

Peter Gooder­ham: Well Zion­ism is a polit­ical move­ment, um, relat­ing to the establishment …

Jeremy Pax­man (queitly): So are some forms of racism.

Peter Gooder­ham: … of a home­land, a Jew­ish home­land, in the er…er, in in what is now Israel, um, and racism is some­thing else. I mean racism is, I think we all know it when we see it and it’s not, it’s not that, and we have fought long and hard at the United Nations to keep that, to main­tain that distinction.

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