change. it is coming.

Listen. Hear That?

(no subject)

From: Links for me and links for you

Stones on my chest

This is what racism is to me as a young Asian woman: racism is hundreds of stones on my chest.

A stone for every time a racial slur is thrown my way.

A stone for every time achieving a goal is harder because of my race.

A stone for every time I am pushed/assumed/written/declared out of the sphere of what is considered Australian.

A stone for my white mother, who said to me last week but I've always thought of you as white.

A stone for my white father, who said to me yesterday CHINA. WORLD POWER. TERROR. FEAR. RESOURCES. INVASION. NOT LIKE US. INSCRUTABLE. MERCILESS. GROUP-THINK. COMMUNISTS!!!!!!! P.S YUM CHA IS DELICIOUS.MORE

Go read the whole thing

Fire in the belly.

via: color_blue and yasaman

The revolution will not be published

That is, when you rely on bureaucratisation and incorporation of high-level leaders into the state and business, once the state decides it doesn’t want to deal with women’s issues any more, you’re basically fucked. And this is what has happened to the Australian women’s movement in the eleven years that John Howard was in power. Women’s government agencies were consistently de-funded, attacked ideologically and dismantled, while sexist policies around abortion, welfare, family, childcare, maternity leave and workplace relations were put into place.

This is also occurring in the environmental movement, where large NGOs are becoming more conservative so as not to lose lobbying access, while ineffective and even dangerous policies are being pursued (e.g. increasing reliance on nuclear energy, carbon trading, bio-fuels, carbon sinks, ‘clean coal’, electricity privatisation).

...

The much larger apparatus’ of the state, business and academia seem to appropriate the best energies of the activists whose genuine ingenuity and passion are co-opted into ossified hierarchical structures. And the movement responds by rallying support for those activists because they command unprecedented levels of power and mainstream credibility. Yet that credibility is premised on an overall tokenism about the issue at stake, be it ecological justice, women’s liberation, racial justice, disability rights, or queer rights. The hierarchical accountability structures which authorise that credibility can muzzle the most radical activist (e.g. Peter Garrett).

...

But when equal access to elite status becomes the goal of a political movement, it becomes apparent that it is no longer concerned with justice, and it develops a parasitic relationship with the grass-roots of that movement.MORE

Who was Mario Savio?

Mario Savio: Sproul Hall Steps, December 2, 1964

"There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part; you can't even passively take part, and you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop. And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!