Friday 25 October 2019

Hosted by Meghan and Zane

7am Intro and acknowledgement of country

705am discussion:

- Meghan has been reading Dark Emu by Bruce Pascoe and strongly recommends this. the book, documenting Aboriginal food cultivation, housing and other technology and processes prior to colonisation is to be turned into a tv series.

- "We don't need a map" by Warwick Thornton is also recommended viewing and explores the significance of the southern cross in Aboriginal culture as well as the way certain white folk have latched onto it.

- The 1986 satitical documentary Babakiueria, which reverses roles and has Aboriginal people colonising white Australia, was also explored.

7:27 Meghan and Zane speak with Margarita Windisch, one of the organisers of the S11 blockade of the world economic forum at crown casino in September 2000. 

The blockade drew together a wide coalition of organisations to  protest against the exploitation, inequality and environmental destruction engendered in the summit. The protests were successful and subsequently faced violent police repression at the hands of the Bracks Labor government which did not want to be embarrassed by the entire summit being blocked. Windisch reports that there was broad support in the wider community, which showed itself in the form of things like free taxi rides to and from the protest and free coffee at local cafes near the blockade.

747 Meghan and Zane speak with community campaigner against coal expansions in the Hunter Valley Bev Smiles, about the various destructive impacts of coal mining. These impacts include destruction of farmland, contaminated runoff from mines, damage to aquifers, dust pollution, noise pollution and a divide and conquer approach which splits and crushes local communities. Bev's home town of Wollar near Mudgee has been destroyed by the Wilpinjong coal mine operated by US corporation Peabody energy. Bev told Zane and Meghan that the planning process in NSW is tilted heavily in favour of the mining companies and the government has repeatedly moved the goalposts at the behest of the big coal companies.

806am activist calendar

816am Meghan and Zane speak with Chilean university lecturer based in Sydney Pablo Leighton regarding the breakout of huge protests against neoliberalism and austerity in Chile.

Leighton reports that the protests, which has seen rolling general strikes sweep the country, were initially triggered by public transport fare rises but tap into broader discontent about the grinding failure of neoliberalism, which was pioneered in Chile starting in 1975 after the fascist dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet took power. The protests are historic and are sending political shockwaves throughout Latin America.