Channel 10 says one of its reporters was assaulted by protesters outside the G20 summit and his video camera was taken from him.
Earlier a group of about 40 protesters, who had been within about 20 metres of the Hyatt, broke through metal and water barricades in Collins Street.
They knocked some police to the ground in the process.
Who are the people you’re writing for?
Your zines, pamphlets and posters galore.
Critiquing everything and everyone
Scrawling away, no time for fun
Who are the people you’re writing for?
Will I find them on the factory floor?
Are they the people who didn’t go to school?
They’re the ones who think you’re a fool
Scrawling away, no time for fun
All your passions are made for one
Forget the factory floor
Its not the market you’re working for
Backyard guru, mother’s special son
You know you work to be the chosen one.
- Republished on Moak*
For more of Anna’s poems, search here
So I’ve been hanging with Kalypso. And for those of you who know me, you’ll know that he’s divorced. His ex-wife is distraught about our relationship. She was someone I was mates with back when I knew her last year, so I felt it was best to be open with her, even though I knew it might cause her some hurt.
I should’ve expected her to overreact. I should’ve expected her to start emailing her hurt and grief across the oceans to ole Sydney town.
I was there for her during their breakup. I was there for her over email and instant messaging every day while she was depressed, seeking work, finding new lovers and changing her idea of self. Let it be known that the other parties to this little saga did not find the time to email eX, let alone console and counsel her during her time of need.
What I didn’t expect was to be bullied by my own anarcha comrades about my relationship. You see - he is offlimits because of certain hurtful things that eX said when they divorced. Things that may be true, or may not be. Who knows? Things that probably are true - but that are the hurtful things that happen in a divorce. I know, I’ve gone through one recently myself. And I know what things are being said about me by my ex (Souvarine) and his once-loving family.
The politics of this story are apalling to me.
I’m supposed to forsake my own pleasure and happiness to impose ostracism on someone who was a friend and is now a lover because his ex may get upset about it. Of course - she has her own boy to comfort her. She has had a string of boys to comfort her.
And then there is the allegation that K is simply using me. Now, it may be true. It may be. But if this is “using” then its a damn sight more equal than any of my previous “mutual” relationships have been.
Politically, I resent being cast as the victim and the dupe. I like to think that right now I have my eyes open and am acting for myself. The suggestion that I am a dupe is an attempt to take away my agency, not so that K can “use” me, but so that those people who do not want me to be with him can get their way.
It’s also a little unnerving to think that my friends assume the only people who would be interested in me are bastards and users, out to take something from me. I am a nice person, a smart person and I can be sweet, loving and good to be around. My friends underestimate my virtues to the point of saying that the only reason someone would want me around is to use me. No-one would really like me for me, right? Wrong and wrong and wrong, again.
I am galled that my anarcha comrade would dare say:
I think that yr personal problems have made you feel lonely and depressed and also, if you don’t mind me saying, u miss having sex after yr brake up with Souvarine. In Kalypso you found comfort and good company but at a great cost.
That “great cost” is, of course, her friendship with me. She doesn’t seem to be aware that I initiated the split with Souv. Nor that he and I hadn’t had sex in many months. I was missing sex well before there was any opportunity to take it.
Yes. I like sex and I tend to hold on to good sex when I find it, but not at the cost of my self-esteem. I’m more likely to stay home with my vibrator than I am to let someone treat me like dirt because they can wield a penis (hand, tounge, whatever) with passable proficiency.
As for this gem, I am astounded:
And I guess I would like you to know that I think that happiness isn’t found with just one partner but with yr whole community. It may sound lame and lovey-dovey but I think that an individual is happy when they know for sure that all their friends are happy. I think that if think about things this way, u might find some solution to yr problems with depression and loneliness.
Community is important. But so is autonomy and freedom. I’m not sure I’d want to be part of a community which cannot tolerate its members to be happy. By her logic, she would find great happiness in my new relationship because it lifts my spirits. But she doesn’t. It isn’t about happiness, its about me doing what I am told.
I love the way that my mate creates the choice for me: Kalypso, or your friends. This is a false dilemma, but it is one which may cause me to lose these friends. Not because I want K more (which may or may not be true), but because I’m not going to be blackmailed when I have done nothing wrong. But my dear mate has it set up so that a choice to refuse emotional blackmail is construed as a choice to betray the “sisterhood” and favour a man. Well, if her sisterhood means having veto over my most intimate actions, then she can stick it.
Political disclaimer: I don’t mean to construe all sisterhood when I talk about this situation. But beware, liberated laydees - not all sisters want what is best for you. Not all sisters will love you enough to let you find out for yourself what it is you need.
a letter to the eX after her emails to my friends calling me a traitor
9 November 2006
eX,
If you want to engage in this victim politics, then go ahead, but leave me out of it. I’ve done nothing to you except support you and offer friendship to you.
I would like to respect your wish to be left alone by myself and others from Sydney. However, I ask that in return you leave me alone. Please don’t contact my friends and comrades to call me a traitor. I never betrayed you. My relationship with K has nothing to do with you. He and I were always friends. Whatever form that takes, you shouldn’t feel that its intended to hurt you.
My happiness doesn’t actually depend on your approval. After a long time being unhappy, I have found something that can help me to be happy, and I want to hold onto that while I can. You are going through similar experiences, and nobody begrudges you having lovers whoever they are. If you keep holding on to being a victim, you’ll end up worse off for it. You have your own life to live and I have mine. Take the joy you have in your life - with your lovers and your job and your friends, and let me have the joy I find in my life.
Have a bit of self respect. Don’t paint me as your oppressor.
Anna
Anna is the Samizdat queen. Here’s a quote from the wikipedia article about samizdat (self publishing).
:Vladimir Bukovsky defined it as follows: “I myself create it, edit it, censor it, publish it, distribute it, and [may] get imprisoned for it.”
I like this.
Sometimes I wished that I lived in a world where I could have kids.
This is not it, though.
summerSeptember 27, 2006 9:11 pm
A message to my male comrades…
The price of my solidarity with you is your rejection of the privilege you have over me
Anyone who’s interested in making some anti-fascist noise this Sunday, turn up to Sydney Park somke stacks at 11.30am (princes Hwy)
summerAugust 16, 2006 6:31 am
Well, this work, anyway.
I quit yesterday, giving 2 weeks notice. This happened after my supervisor yelled at me for no particular reason. This morning I printed a huge multi-coloured notice proclaiming “Ya Basta!”, and stuck it on my partition.
I guess I still have to work, but at least I don’t have to take shit from someone who I used to be friendly with until they “get over it” and start picking on someone else.
summerAugust 10, 2006 1:46 am
I’ve been betrayed…at work, no less.
You see, your beloved interlocutor has been the victim of bullying from 4 of her 9 workmates. The boss’s solution? To tell me (in veiled terms) that if I didn’t try harder to co-operate with said bullies, I’d be terminated. Regretfully, of course.
Now, I’m very good at my job. And the job I do is somewhere in the union movement….so I feel particularly nasty about this revelation. I can tell myself that I never expected anything more, but its still a fucking shock to find out just how “for the workers” unions really are.
Time to look for another job…. anyone want an anarcha-fem tech head?
summerJune 21, 2006 3:11 am
And so would Pvt. Jake Kovco.
The story is, he was singing to the Cranberries, mincing around singing in falsetto when he took his sidearm from its holster and pointed it to his head as if to say “this is so gay, I’d rather be dead”. Well now he is.
