joe.toscano's blog

Technological innovations have revolutionised the art of political murder. Human beings have the capacity to carry out the most gruesome murders. The National Socialists perfected mass murder on an industrial scale. The nuclear bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima at the end of WWII resulted in the instant indiscriminate murder of tens of thousands of men, women and children. Although human beings have volunteered for suicide missions on a regular basis, the suicide bomber is a relatively new phenomenon.

The next time I hear a politician, business leader or media commentator talk about jobs, jobs, jobs!! I’m going to put my fingers down my throat and vomit. Politicians, commentators and corporate types always wax lyrical about the need to create jobs. Obviously in a capitalist society if you don’t have access to inherited wealth, have a pile of money in the bank, shares and stocks and real restate or have won a Tattslotto first division prize, you need a job to survive in a capitalist society if you're not entitled to social security benefits.

It’s no accident the state is defined as sovereign political power. Traditionally the state was the apparatus that allowed those who exercised power within a specific territory to enforce that power. The sovereign enjoyed a monopoly in that territory on the exercise of power. Anarchists have traditionally considered themselves to be the enemy of the state because the state gives those who exercise power and accumulate wealth, the mechanism by which to enforce inequalities in the communities they control.

Have you ever wondered why, in the English speaking world, the word anarchy is synonymous with chaos? Anarchism, the idea people can live their lives without rulers, not without rules, has a much wider acceptance in the non-English speaking world. To a large degree this is due to the fact anarchist ideas have never captured the public imagination in the English speaking world and no large scale political, social and cultural movements that promote anarchism have ever been a significant political force in an English speaking community.

When I first started on this political odyssey nearly 50 years ago I assumed religious belief would soon be shattered on the rocks of rationality. How wrong I was! Fifty years later religious belief has become the most important element in an increasing number of people’s lives. The search for meaning in a 21st century consumer driven society has become the single most important element in the current religious revival.

Everywhere you turn more and more people are discovering the word of God and those who refuse to listen, pay the price.

When the last Federal election was called I publicly stated on The Anarchist World This Week, one of my radio programs on Community Radio 3CR, Jacqui Lambie would be re-elected as a Senator for Tasmania and she would be the most radical member of the crossbench, if not, the Federal Parliament. Since the election a year ago, despite a number of ridiculous forays up political cul de sacs, her voting record has highlighted she has the best interests of those Australians who are struggling despite living in the land of milk and honey.

I’m afraid not. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), a Hindu Nationalist party led by the current Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, was swept into office 3 years ago on a platform of economic reform. The BJP’s economic reform program has succeeded in making the rich richer and the poor poorer, in India. Facing a general election in 2019 the Indian government is moving away from its moribund economic agenda to a hard line Hindu Nationalist agenda.

Have you noticed, the more time saving technological innovations we acquire, the less time we seem to have? Mobile phones or should I say, mobile handheld computers, are an excellent example. I was walking down the street a few weeks ago and counted 17 people walking down the same street using their mobile phones. Everywhere you turn an increasing number of people seem to be glued to their phones. In supermarkets you see people who are trying to choose a $3 pack of peas ring their better half to find out which pack to buy.

21st century government is based on the idea the private sector always does it better and cheaper than the public sector. The latest outsourcing fiasco is centred around labour hire firms that bring out labour from the Pacific Islands to work on Australian farms under a program that was initiated, supported and is policed by the Australian government. Instead of running the program themselves, the Australian government in its wisdom decided to outsource the hiring of Pacific Islander workers to labour hire companies.

I'm looking at a postcard I bought from the Wonthaggi Historical Society booth at the Korumburra Working Horse and Tractor Rally which is held in Nyora (10km outside of Korumburra) every March. I enjoy going to the Korumburra Working Horse and Tractor Rally. There’s nothing glamourous about it. The same people turn up every year. The local Lions Club makes the chips, the heritage working horses turn up to do their thing. Tractors are pitted against machines.