Cautiously optimistic

Rudd to say "Sorry" to Stolen Generations.

xposted

Another one crossposted from my LJ... I'm getting a bit lazy like that.



I for one welcome our new Moon Face overlords.

I have never seen anything like the atmosphere in the pub last night. The energy in the room building with each announcement (Bennelong, Howard's concession, Rudd's acceptance speech) to an amazing crescendo of excitement. Everyone who didn't turn up missed out on a hell of a night... fuck, people were literally dancing in the streets when we left. It was fantastic.

I had my fingers crossed for a Labor win, but was relatively morose about the possibilities for actual change. The ALP's promise to reinstate an ATSI council was really the only thing I could point to and say I saw as a definite, positive change if they kept their promise... everything else was filed under "better than Howard" in my brain.

And then the results started rolling in. And kept rolling in. And a swing that big, across the country? That was Australia saying a big "fuck you" to the Liberal party... and honestly, it was just such a relief to watch those numbers piling up and think "Well, I'll be fucked... Australians haven't become COMPLETELY politically apathetic." I think that realisation was the highlight of the night for me.

I joked last night that everyone in the pub should send Kevin Rudd an email to hammer home the "Don't Fuck It Up" message. Quite seriously, though... do write letters. Make it clear that we're not happy just with the win, we expect things to actually change in many areas.

In one way, the election has already achieved something awesome: We have more women holding office than we've ever had before. We have a female deputy PM for the first time ever. We had the active Prime Minister lose his seat to a woman. In terms of feminism on paper, this election was an enormous success. Now we hope that it turns out that way in practice.

Today is white ribbon day. End violence against women. Check out the site... they have a few good suggestions of what we can each do.

Election woes

Arrrgghhh!

Having already decided what I'm doing with my vote on Saturday, and having read such awesome posts by so many of my friends on the topic of the election that I cannot possible have much else to add... why am I torturing myself?

I just read the Family First policy release on Indigenous Australians. Urge to kill. Riiiiising.

In fact, most of the policy releases I've read on Indigenous Australia are depressing if not enraging. Those Indigenous Affairs groups that are willing to risk voicing suggestions on who to vote for (and oh boy are they in the minority) are mostly framing it in terms of "Well, here are the major parties whose stated policies, whilst still ranking Indigenous issues fairly low, are least actively fucked for Indigenous Australians." (Greens and Democrats, in case you were wondering)

The Coalition are pushing us back to pre-1970 race relation conditions, and Family First want to go even further. Can we please, please fuck these conservative monsters off this time around? The ALP aren't exactly rocking my world with their fence-sitting baby-stepping on Indigenous issues (and supporting the welfare quarantine? FUCK YOU!) but at least they seem MORE likely to provide a government that, oh, considers me and my mob to be god damned human beings. Whether we're human beings deserving of being listened to and prioritised is, of course, a completely different question.

*sigh* Elections depress me... and this post is only about why I'm depressed and enraged as an Indigenous Aussie. I haven't even gotten to the part where my queer, disabled, female sex worker bits are miserable, angry and terrified.

I will vote, then I will drink. And I will hope for the best of a bunch of shitty options.

*gloom*

The birthday thing

This is crossposted from my LJ. I know most people who read hexpletive and DON'T read the LJ aren't actually in Australia, but I figured it was worth the cross post anyway.





Feb, 08. My 25th birthday.

I've mentioned the significance of this a few times. For those who missed it: Big scary mental illness diagnosis at 19 with pretty shitty odds of recovery. The statistics, I was told, say that only one in five people diagnosed in early adulthood with that particular combination of crazies will live past twenty-five. For every one of me blowing out those candles and drinking with friends, there are four who are being mourned. That's huge.

As I started getting closer to that birthday, the hugeness began to make itself clear. This is a pretty significant checkpoint, at least in my brain. It's not like it'll suddenly be easier to live with after twenty-five, but I'll have beaten the odds. I decided to deal with it the way I deal with most significant events in my life: I'm gonna have a big fucking party! There will be cake, and costumes, and booze! You know, the usual!

But, y'know... as I'm getting even closer, and I'm thinking more about it, that's really not seeming enough. I've had a few bad patches recently, worse than I've had in years, and it's brought into sharp awareness that this opportunity for celebration... really isn't. It's awesome that I'm still here, and I definitely want to take the opportunity to celebrate that and be extremely thankful for it... but one in five? One in fucking five? Eighty percent of people just like me dead by their twenty-fifth birthday? That's not cake and boozes, that's tears and horror and saying a fucking prayer every time I swallow those pills and talk to my friend who keep me supported and safe.

So the plan's changed a bit. This party I want to have, this celebration of my survival is still happening... but I want to run it as a fundraiser for schizophrenia research. I want those drinks and happies and congratulations and cakes to achieve something, however tiny a contribution it is.

For my twenty-fifth birthday, I want the present of feeling like I have done something, however insignificant, to boost the stats of those of us who make it.

Unfortunately, my event organisation skills basically amounts to "the people with the fire do this now and the rest of you applaud". I have a rough idea in my head of what I want to happen, and I'll work like hell to make it come about, but my expertise is minimal and my resources for eventy stuff even less. As such, I'm putting out the call... whether you think this is a good cause and would like to help for that reason, or you just want to see me smiling like a (living!) crazy person on my twenty-fifth, if you have something to offer and are willing to help me out, please get in touch.

My email address is hexyhex at gmail dot com. Anyone who'll lend a hand on this one, drop me a mail.

And yeah, this is going un-cut to the whole friend list... even those I usually screen mention of the s-word from. It's important enough.

The genderberg thing

Here's one of the things about me. If you ask me a question, I'll give you an answer.

If you choose to skip that process and just make up your own explanation, you'll probably be wrong.

Do you want to know why I asked sam to delete my genderberg profile? Really and truly?

Check out the results of a google search on the search term "hexyhex"

If you go to the second page of results, the very bottom link is to a post I made on genderberg ages ago. The contents of the post can be read despite the forum being locked.

Before I had my profile deleted, that search brought up my membership profile on genderberg as the second or third result on the first page. Considering it's supposed to be a confidential space (although that seems to have been repeatedly breached by quite a few people, or so I've gathered) and considering that the descriptions on the site attach a few labels to users of the site that I'm just not comfortable appearing that easily when attached to my online handle, I wasn't comfortable with that. So I requested that my status be changed from "I'm still a member but only come around the site every now and then" to "not a member".

Now you know. Ask next time.

Devastated

I lost one of the buns on Thursday night. We're not sure what happened or when, but when I got up yesterday I found Toon dead in the cage. Here's the post I made on LJ.

R came home and we took them both to the Vet. We decided against a post-mortem for the simple reason that it's unlikely to tell us anything. Leaving her body with the Vet for "disposal" was the hardest thing I've done in a while... it felt so wrong, but I couldn't in good conscience bury her somewhere knowing she'd probably be dug up pretty soon by some asshole renevator or a dog. The Vet gave Bam a check up and said she couldn't see any signs of illness, so we've brought him home. He was incredibly stressed when I found him this morning, but seems to have calmed down a bit. I'm keeping an eye on him over the next couple of days... it's not unheard of for rabbits to die of loneliness when their bonded companion passes on. My poor little guy has lost his best friend.

I keep feeling like I failed her, that if I'd been paying better attention I would have noticed something was wrong. Weirdly, both R and I have had horrid premonition-y thoughts about the buns over the last few days... but, of course, we ignored them like the sane, rational, 21st Century humans we are. She wasn't the healthiest bun... fuck, we don't even know how old she was, and her stress levels were through the roof... but she was relying on me to look out for her, and I failed.

*sigh*

Yeah, I know it's not the case, and there was probably nothing I could do. Doesn't make it any less awful. I keep thinking of all her weird little mannerisms I'm never going to see again, all the bizarre little things she'll never do. She was finally starting to warm up to running around the park... at least she got to spend some time on the grass before she died, and got to bond with Bam.

Call to Action!

I'm a bit late with this...

Call for Solidarity with Aboriginal People in the Northern Territory
Stop the Invasion!

International Day of Action, November 17th

In June this year, the Australian Prime Minister, John Howard,
announced that there would be a 'National Emergency Response' to
combat child abuse in Aboriginal communities in the Northern
Territory. The measures announced included the quarantining of half of
all welfare payments, the abolition of the Community Development
Employment Program, the appointment of managers for 73 prescribed
communities, compulsory sexual health examinations of children, and
the abolition of the permit system, amongst other things.

These measures are a violation of human rights, and is obviously
racist and authoritarian. The passage of the Emergency Response
legislation is dependent on the suspension of the Racial
Discrimination Act, and the Northern Territory Native Title Act.
Federal police and the military have been sent into the NT to enforce
these measures.

Aboriginal people that work through the Community Development
Employment Program (CDEP) manage their own wages and money.
Abolishing CDEP will push people onto welfare and the welfare income
management system that allows for quarantining and tight control of
how people's money is spent. Many people running businesses on CDEP in
remote outstations are already being forced to move into larger
regional towns. The extraordinary measures give the Federal Government
power to seize lands and property without compensation. The owners of
those lands and properties have no right of appeal. Lands will be
leased for five years, but the government has plans to extend these
measures for 99 years. It is entirely up to ministerial discretion
whether rent is paid on those lands or not.

The Federal Government has appointed non-Indigenous business managers
to the 'prescribed' communities. These managers have the power to
decide who lives in a community and who must leave; they can observe
any meeting of an organisation working at the community, they can
change any local programme. Many Aboriginal communities consider these
measures, often being administered by under-prepared military
personnel, as an invasion rather than an intervention.

These measures return Aboriginal people to the days of mission
stations, where life was tightly controlled by authoritarian managers.
It is a return to times of colonial control on Aboriginal life, and
the complete absence of any autonomy or self-determination. The
removal of basic property rights as enjoyed by all other Australians,
with the abolition of the permit system, is a gross violation of human
rights. Even the Northern Territory police oppose this measure, for
the likely adverse effect it will have on crime.

Some $570 million is being spent on these measures. Half of that money
will be spent on the salaries of 700 new bureaucratic positions
created to regulate this intervention. $88 million will be spent on
measures to control the incomes of Aboriginal people on any government
payment (including aged pensions and veterans payments).

This is an insult to the hard work of Aboriginal people who have been
campaigning for basic services in remote communities. Roads, schools,
health care, housing and social services are desperately needed by
these communities. It is estimated that the housing backlog alone for
Northern Territory Aboriginal communities is half a billion dollars.
Moreover, with the publication of the Closing the Gap report by Oxfam
earlier this year, it has been shown that Indigenous life expectancy
is 17 years below that of non-Indigenous life expectancy.

A week and a half ago, the Australian Prime Minister, John Howard,
announced the Federal election for November 24th.

This came shortly after Australia voted against the UN Declaration on
the Rights of Indigenous peoples (along with Canada, New Zealand and
the USA).

It is time to stand up for justice for Indigenous peoples everywhere,
to demand either a change of policy, or a change of government!

One week before the Australian Federal election, on November 17th,
various groups across Australia will be taking action to show
opposition to the Federal government's intervention into the Northern
Territory. We hope that those outside Australia will join us in
calling for an end to this government, an end to racist, colonialist
policies towards Indigenous people, and support for the strong
self-determination that Indigenous people demonstrate every day.

With allegations that the Australian Federal government is
manipulating international media about the intervention, it is vitally
important that information about the intervention and views of
Indigenous people in the Northern Territory are widely disseminated
through social justice networks. Please use your community and
activist media to promote the interests of Indigenous Australians, and
Indigenous people worldwide!

Learn more:

National Aboriginal Alliance: http://www.nationalaboriginalalliance.org/
Combined Aboriginal Organisations of the Northern Territory -
alternative to the government's Emergency Response:
http://www.snaicc.asn.au/news/documents/CAOreport8july.pdf
Women for Wik: http://www.womenforwik.org/
Australians for Native Title and Reconciliation: http://www.antar.org.au/
Oxfam: http://www.oxfam.org.au/world/pacific/australia/
Koori Mail: http://www.koorimail.com/


Things you can do:

1. Organise a protest outside the Australian Consulate in your nearest
city. Make it clear that the Howard government's shameful opportunism
on human rights is gathering international criticism.
2. Donate to the National Aboriginal Alliance. Find out more on their
website, here: http://www.nationalaboriginalalliance.org/
3. Spread the news of this horrendous violation of human rights to as
many people as possible. Write an article about it, post to your blog
about it, send the news to your friends via email. Encourage your
friends to speak out about it as well.
4. If you are part of a political organisation, collective, or group,
please send your words of solidarity and support to the National
Aboriginal Alliance. Send messages of solidarity to: secretariat at
nationalaboriginalalliance dot org.
5. Write letters to Mal Brough, the Minister for Indigenous Affairs,
or John Howard. You can find guidelines here:
http://www.antar.org.au/action/current_actions/

Sex work, the queer community and cash

Trickle Down Ho Economics on Queercents.

Interesting perspective. I personally cringe at the word "ho", but my fragile sensibilities aside it's a thought-provoking article.

I've certainly noticed this in my local queer community. Even in sectors that are not very accepting of sex work, workers still pour a lot of money in.