Living the Dream

Living The Dream from Something to Somewhere Else in Qld

Wed, 13 May 2026 03:06:01 -0500

Living the Dream is back! Jon and Dave are trying to work out what’s going on with the Crisafulli/ Janetzki Queensland state government. Why is it criminalising simply speaking up against the genocide in GAZA? Why is it criminalising children? What’s its plan for capitalism in Queensland? Why has it launched a commission against the CFMEU? How is it balancing the culture war hunger of its aging base against the need to win elections and manage society? And what does this all mean for those of us committed to emancipation?

Stuff we reference includes:

Inflation & the Cost of Living Crisis

Field Notes

Could the Liberals’ Deakinite dilemma reshape the party system? Frank Bongiorno

Antony Loewenstein Podcast

Queensland’s renewable energy ‘whiplash’: how the shift from coal stalled in Australia’s most polluting state

The LNP’s phrase-banning law is wide open to constitutional attack. Is it a victory for the people, or a smart political play? Anne Twomey

Living the Dream Under Administration

Mon, 03 Feb 2025 04:51:03 -0500

In this episode, recorded in October 2024, Jon and Dave chat with friend of the show and all-around good egg Elizabeth Humphrys about the Labour Movement’s (both the ALP and Trade Unions) actions to put the CFMEU under administration. Just what is going on?

You can read more of Liz’s prolific output here.

Listeners may be interested in this building industry rank and file newsletter Hard Hat

Living the Dream with Disaster Communism

Tue, 13 Aug 2024 21:01:45 -0500

In this episode Dave chats with Nick Southall about his new book Disaster Communism and Anarchy in the Streets

You can buy a copy of Nick’s book from the publisher Kembla Books

Nick’s blog is Revolts Now . Here you can find a collection of his work: including that on the Wollongong Out of Workers Union, his PhD thesis, reflections on his life in the Communist Party of Australia, his experiences on being on the last fraternal delegation to the USSR and much much more!

Living The Dream After the End of the Albanese Hegemony

Sun, 18 Feb 2024 04:45:24 -0500

Well it’s been a while, but Living the Dream is back!

Jon and Dave welcome in 2024 by discussing how in 2023 the Albanese Hegemony disintegrated. We discuss what the Laborist project looked like coming out of the 2022 election, and how over 2023 between the costs of living crisis and the failure of the Voice referendum the wheels fell off and more importantly why we should or should not care.

Jon has been very busy being a historian you should follow him on the social media formally known at Twitter - @jonpiccini. Dave has been largely occupying himself with table top games but also has contributed to this research project Class and Capital in Australia

Stuff we read, listened to etc and may have discussed in this episode include:

Megan Davis Truth After the Voice

Irene Watson There is No Hope in a Voice to Parliament

Noel Pearson Boyer Lectures

Laura Tingle Regaining control over the national political conversation will be Anthony Albanese's one great challenge in 2024

Jonathon Green Wither Progress?

Jim Chalmers Capitalism After the Crises

Shameless Plug

Tue, 15 Aug 2023 07:02:58 -0500

Hi All

Long time no listen!
Dave has launched a game on Kickstarter and is using Living The Dream to shameless promote it!

Go here and pledge

Share the link with your friendshttps://www.kickstarter.com/projects/babyboomer/baby-boomer-have-it-all-relaunch

Living The Dream After White Australia Episode 4: The White Possessive

Tue, 27 Dec 2022 03:50:37 -0500

In this episode Dave (@withsobersenses) and Jon (@jonpiccini) discuss The White Possessive by Aileen Moreton-Robinson. Aileen Moreton-Robinson is a Goenpul woman from Minjerribah (Stradbroke Island), Quandamooka First Nation (Moreton Bay) in Queensland, Australia and is Professor of Indigenous Research at the University of Queensland.

Moreton-Robinson’s work provides a root-and-branch critique of modernity from the perspective of Indigenous Sovereignty and produces a set of critical concepts to think against the operation of race and whiteness both within Australia and beyond.

Other sources mentioned include The Act of Disappearing (meanjin.com.au) by Amy McQuire and the work of Onyeka Nubia, David Roediger and Noel Ignatiev

Listeners should be aware that this show discusses racism, including racist violence.

Music by Chasing Ghost

Living The Dream whilst Leaving 2021

Fri, 31 Dec 2021 22:58:46 -0500

Recorded just before Xmas in this episode Jon (@JonPiccini) and Dave (@withsobersenses) talk about 2021. Unsurprisingly we talk a lot about the global pandemic and the attempts to manage it. We discuss the continual rise of an insurgent Right that seems to have become the pole for much of social rebellion at the same time large sections of the Left have further invested in fantasies of the state, the current condition of global capitalism beset by a logistics crisis, labour insubordinations and inflation and more!

Stuff we mention include

Conspiracy and Social Struggle – Wu Ming

The Specific Character of Today’s Crisis – Sergio Bologna

Immunodemocracy

Dear Agamben, I write to you – Donatella Di Cesare

Living The Dream with Anarchy and its Allies

Wed, 24 Nov 2021 07:15:30 -0500

In this episode Dave (@withsobersenses) chats with two anarchist comrades Tommy (@correnterosso) and Charlie about Tommy’s recent article Anarchy and Its Allies: The United Front and the Groupings of Tendency and the related rise in anarcho-communist organisations in Australia. We chat about how anarchism is developing andthe current appeal of Platformism and Especifismo . Topics of discussion include the role a theoretical framework plays and where it comes from, class composition and the history of organisations, and the relationship of revolutionaries to class struggle.

A key text mentioned is Social Anarchism and Organisation

Tommy is a member of Geelong Anarcho-Communists and says sorry for how they pronounced the group TMA

Charlie is a member of Black Flag Sydney

They recommend reading Red and Black Notes

You used to be able to find the archives of the Mutiny Zine at Jura but their website is having issues.

Music by Ernst Busch

Living The Dream After White Australia EP3: White Nation

Mon, 29 Mar 2021 05:10:24 -0500

In this episode Jon (@JonPiccini) and Dave (@withsobersenses) continue their discussion about race, whiteness and Australia. This time they are reading Ghassan Hage’s classic of 90s Theory White Nation. We talk through his ideas about Whiteness, White Nationalism and fantasy, his critique of tolerance and multiculturalism and try to work out what these ideas give us and also what they miss. How does Hage’s work reflect the changes in Australian society, its internal conflicts and the ruptures and continuations in radical ideas?

We finish this episode with Joe Dolce’s Shaddap You Face – picked as an example of a particular kind of humour produced by 70s/80s multiculturalism. Since then we have discovered that Joe Dolce, a self-declared Leftist, has moved over to writing for Quadrant, largely it seems due as a reaction to cultural debates. So there you go.

Living The Dream After White Australia Ep2: A New Britannia

Mon, 28 Sep 2020 04:22:16 -0500

In this episode Dave (@withsobersenses) and Jon (@JonPiccini) discuss Humphrey McQueen's A New Britannia. This is the first of three books we are reading as part of a series on race and capitalism in Australia,

We try to come to grips with his argument and its explanation for racism arising from the specifics of class formation in Australia, how it challenged established Leftwing thought and its implications for today.

We reference

Two Radical Legends: Russel Ward, Humphrey McQueen and the New Left Challenge in Australian Historiography

Music by Redgum

Living The Dream After White Australia Part 1

Tue, 04 Aug 2020 21:48:51 -0500

This is part 1 of our new reading series on race in Australia and the struggle against it. Over the next 3 or so months Jon (@JonPiccini) and Dave (@withsobersenses) will be reading A New Britannia by Humphrey McQueen, White Nation by Ghassan Hage and The White Possessive by Aileen Moreton-Robinson. In this episode we set out why we are doing this, our thinking at this point in time and briefly discuss what the White Australia Policy was and wasn’t and the whys and whynots.

We encourage all our listeners to read with us and join us in the discussion.

Correction: I mention Nelson Peery as being a member of DRUM/League of Revolutionary Black Workers. He wasn’t. You can find an interview with him about his life and works here

As for DRUM and the League you can find an interview with Darryl ‘Waistline’ Mitchell and Donald Abdul Roberts here

You should read Hard Crackers and its recent offshoot (split?) Gasoline and Grits too

Insurgent Notes has a special issue dedicate to the life and works of Noel Ignatiev

Music by Wyatt Waddell

Living The Dream with Full Employment

Tue, 12 May 2020 03:33:26 -0500

In this episode Jon (@JonPiccini) and Dave (@withsobersenses) have a chat with Anthony O’Donnell (@AnthonyODonne13), a Senior Lecturer from La Trobe and author of ‘Inventing Unemployment: Regulating Joblessness in Twentieth-Century Australia’. Anthony shows us how the category of Full Employment was invented and why, and undermines the claim that the low levels of post-War unemployment were due to the magic powers of a white paper written under the Chifley Government rather than say the general dynamics of the boom. At the time it was low levels of unemployment that presented an issue for capitalism and the groundwork of the punitive regime the poor are subjected to today was developed then. Great stuff.

Living The Dream with a Climate Emergency, COVID-19 and The Australian State

Mon, 20 Apr 2020 03:36:33 -0500

In this episode of Living The Dream Dave (@withsobersenses) talks with Anna Sturman (@anna_sturman) author of ‘Climate Emergency’, COVID-19 and the Australian capitalist state . Anna draws on the work of Nicos Poulantzas to present an understanding of the state, a diagnosis of the contemporary conjuncture of Australian capitalism and suggest ways that we can struggle for dignity and lives worth living. We talk through the possibilities of the present, the opportunities for creating and using power and cut the gordian knot of the great debate of 2019 – Jobs Guarantee or Universal Basic Income.

Music by Chumbawamba

Living The Dream with a Workers’ Plan To Survive Covid-19 Crisis

Mon, 06 Apr 2020 07:17:34 -0500

In this episode of Living The Dream Dave (@withsobersenses) chats with Godfrey Moase (@gemoase) a director of the United Workers Union.

The UWU, a recent a fusion of the National Union of Workers and United Voice, has been receiving a lot of attention due to the industrial actions of its members, its claims to be revitalising internal democracy and its Workers’ Plan To Survive Covid-19 Crisis : a broad vision to address the immediate impacts of the COVID-19 crisis in a way that points beyond capitalism. This interview with Tim Kennedy the National Secretary of the UWU in Jacobin is very useful: “We Can Use This Crisis to Reconceptualize the Economy” .

Here Godfrey explains the strategy and organisational direction of the UWU, gives a critique of the #changetherules defeat and presents what he thinks is a viable way forward to accumulate class power.

Music by Meatraffle

Living The Dream in the time of COVID-19

Mon, 23 Mar 2020 18:14:07 -0500

In this episode of Living The Dream Dave @withsobersenses talks about the questions that COVID-19 is forcing us to confront – and then goes on to do an analysis of a report from Macquarie Wealth Management stating conventional capitalism is dying and finishes by looking at the latest developments in the provision of stimulus from the RBA and the Federal Government.

After recording this episode I found out that the story about dolphins in Venice wasn’t true. Bum.

Articles mentioned include:

The Age of Mass Protests: Understanding an Escalating Global Trend

Conventional capitalism is dying: Macquarie warns

Music by Cable Ties

Image: If the unemployed are dole bludgers, what the fuck are the idle rich? - Redback Graphix remixed by Wendy Murray

Living The Dream with COVID-19 and a Recession

Thu, 12 Mar 2020 08:02:32 -0500

In this episode Dave @withsobersenses takes a moment to think about how and why COVID-19 is impacting the capitalist mode of production, what are the drivers of the looming recession and depression and why various Keynesian arguments get it wrong.

You should read Social Contagion

Music by Assück

Living The Dream against anti-Chinese Racism

Wed, 19 Feb 2020 02:38:13 -0500

In this episode, Jon (@JonPiccini) has a long delayed conversation with Shan Windscript (@ShanWindy), Phd student at University of Melbourne and organiser, who has played key roles in the fight for casual workers in the tertiary sector and the rights of international students. We talk about how the Coronavirus has served to weaponise long standing fears about China in Australia, how supporting movements for change in Hong Kong is not incompatible with working for political and economic rights on the mainland, and how Shan’s research on the inner lives of everyday activists in Maoist China undermines attempts to present the present CCP regime as omnipotent.

Shan's writing includes

Can Chinese Students Abroad Speak? Asserting Political Agency amid Australian Nationalist Anxiety

How to Write a Diary in Mao’s New China: Guidebooks in the Crafting of Socialist Subjectivities

Music by RE-Tros

Living The Dream with a Green New Deal

Tue, 22 Oct 2019 22:56:54 -0500

In this episode of Living The Dream Jon (@JonPiccini) and Dave (@withsobersenses) catch up with Tash Heenan (@tashellenheenan) and Jeremy Poxon (@JeremyPoxon) to discuss the Green New Deal. Jon, Tash and Jeremy are partisans of the Green New Deal, seeing it as a way of addressing immediate concerns and opening pathways to more radical transformations whilst Dave remains something of a half-reformed ultra-left curmudgeon who can do nothing more than yell ‘but the value-form’ at worried passer-bys.

We chat about what a Green New Deal may or may not be, if it is an attempt to save or destroy capitalism, its relationship or not with creating communism, the hard limits the environmental crisis imposes, the disappearance of the commons as a concept, and a whole lot more.

Writings we reference include:

Australia Needs A Green New Deal, Not More Centrism

We need a Blak New Deal to fight the climate crisis

A Red Deal

Three Ways a Green New Deal Can Promote Life Over Capital

Responsible minerals sourcing for renewable energy

Trade Unions for Energy Democracy

Between the Devil and the Green New Deal

Living the Dream with ScoMo

Fri, 19 Jul 2019 01:19:02 -0500

Now that the hot-takes have gone cold and are stale as bricks @JonPiccini and @withsobersenses take out their artisanal slow-cooker take on the recent Australian Federal election. Why did we get it so wrong? Why did #changetherules suck? What will a Morrison Coalition government look like and what does it mean for our strategy?

CW: This show contains a discussion of misogyny and domestic violence.

Stuff we mention includes:

Elizabeth Humphrys – We Live in Anti-Political Times

Amy Thomas - Federal election 2019: What the hell just happened? Five arguments

Jeremy Poxon, Tash Heenan & Jon Piccini - Australia Needs A Green New Deal, Not More Centrism

Music by Class War

Living The Dream during #Ausvotes2019

Tue, 14 May 2019 22:29:09 -0500

In this episode Jon (@JonPiccini) and Dave (@withsobersenses) try to work out if we have anything useful to say about an election that is all hype but actually a snoozefest. What does it tell us about the state of Australian society, what can anticapitalists draw from it? Are we about the #Changetherules or will Clive Palmer be leading us into a Kangaroo Reich? What happens the morning after?

We also address some criticisms we have received and try to muddle through some blind-spots in our thinking.

Stuff we mention includes:

Whiteness and Class Struggle

Anti-politics and how to watch election night

Fully Automated Luxury Communism? | Ash Sarkar meets Franco 'Bifo' Berardi

Whiteness Again

Sojourner Truth Organisation: Understanding and Fighting White Supremacy

Floodcast 10 Petition Me Daddy

On Christchurch, lone wolves, and the threat of fascism

Living The Dream with Acid Communism and/or Acid Corbynism

Thu, 25 Apr 2019 23:55:44 -0500

In this episode Dave (@withsobersenses) chats with Keir Milburn (@KeirMilburn ). Keir is from Leeds and has been an anti-state communist for a respectable amount of time (and an all round good egg). Previously a member of Class War and the Leeds May Day Group/ The Free Association he is now part of Plan C. Recently he has been trying to think through how anti-capitalists can related to the rise of Corbyn and the return of social democracy. We talk through the arguments and deal with some of the critiques. He has a new book Generation Left out now.

Some stuff we mention includes

Acid Corbynism is a gateway drug

Class War is Dead… Long Live The Class War

On Social Strikes and Directional Demands

Turbulence: What would it mean to win

What can an institution do? Towards Public-Common partnerships and a new common-sense

Living the Dream at Deebing Creek

Mon, 11 Mar 2019 07:28:50 -0500

In this episode of Living the Dream Feargal and Bill report from the campsite out at Deebing Creek. They have a chat with Shale and James about what is going on, the nature of the struggle, the relationships of solidarity that are being built and what they think will happen next.

Follow the struggle at Deebing Creek here:

Yuggera Ugarapul Tribal Elders

Save Deebing Creek Mission

Sign the petition for a Commission of Inquiry

Music by A.B. Original (feat. Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu)

Living the Dream with the Struggle to Decriminalise Sex Work

Sun, 03 Mar 2019 07:43:00 -0500

In this episode Dave (@withsobersenses) chats with Elena Jeffreys (@ElenaJeffrys) from the sex worker organisation Respect Inc. Elena talks about the history of sex worker self-organisation, the conditions of sex workers in Australia today and the importance of the struggle to decriminalise sex work to improving the working conditions and lives of sex workers. Elena digs into the what is wrong with the ‘Swedish Model’, the negative and violent impact it has had on peoples’ lives, and the role that section of feminism and the Left have played in instituting it. Content Warning – the episode mentions violence against women.

Music by Goran Bregovic – (with possibly ambiguous lyrics)

Living The Dream with the Anti-Nuclear Movement in Japan

Sun, 17 Feb 2019 07:02:54 -0500

In this episode Dave (@withsobersenses) chats with excellent comrade Alexander Brown about the anti-nuclear movement in Japan. Alexander talks about the role nuclear power plays in Japanese society, the pre-Fukushima influence of the New Left, the freeter movement and alter-globalisation struggles, the impact the Fukushima disaster had, the tactics and strategy of the movement, its links with the global wave of ‘squares’ and ‘Occupys’, what’s happening now and the increasingly importance of solidarity in East Asia. Alexander really digs into the thought, concepts and understandings of the movement.

You can find Alexander’s book, thesis and blog below.

Anti-nuclear Protest in Post-Fukushima Tokyo

Power struggles: the strategies and tactics of the anti-nuclear movement in contemporary Tokyo

Love From Tokyo

Living The Dream reads On Fairness by Sally McManus

Sun, 10 Feb 2019 07:31:41 -0500

In this episode Jon (@JonPiccini) and Dave (@withsobersenses) review ACTU Secretary Sally McManus’ book On Fairness.We try to dig in to how McManus fails to understand the actual dynamics of capitalism – rather blaming bad people and bad ideas for the problems we face. This means the book points us in the wrong direction. Rather we need to address the core dynamics in our society if we want to fight exploitation and oppression today and struggle for and create a society where we can live lives worth living.

You can find Jon’s article on Labor, Trade Unions and the White Australia Policy here:

A White Working Man’s Country

Living The Dream whilst abolishing prisons

Sun, 13 Jan 2019 23:39:35 -0500

In this episode Dave talks with Bridget Harilaou about the recent Imagining Abolition Conference organised by Sisters Inside. Bridget discusses the ideas that were discussed there, their implications for struggles and the kind of future abolishing prisons points to. She digs into how prisons quilt together histories of colonialism, the operation of patriarchy and the oppression of Indigenous people and thus why the struggle against them is so important.

Bridget’s work can be found in many places. Here is some of it:

Flavours Of Forgiveness — What Bao Tells Us About Family

What we get wrong about smart Asian kids

Why Asian Australians should call out racism beyond their own culture

Activist Or Professional? A Feminist Question

Sisters Inside do lots of amazing things. They are currently raising funds to free Aboriginal women imprisoned for the non-payment of fines. Chip in if you can

Living The Dream in 2019!

Tue, 08 Jan 2019 00:12:09 -0500

2019! Wooooo! In this episode of Living The Dream Jon (@jonpiccini) and Dave (@withsobersenses) take off the party-hats, pick the streamers from their shoulders of their tuxedo jackets, set aside the Champagne flutes and have a chat about what 2018 was all about what we think is going to happen in 2019. Climate Change, fascism, #libspill, disaster communism, power prices, radical social democracy, #changetherules, #metoo, book recommendations and angry clowns air boxing whilst riding unicycles – this episode has it all!

Some stuff we talk about includes:

Cronulla 2.0? : Racist assembly @ St Kilda Beach, Saturday, January 5, 2019

Kieran’s Review

Stephen Wertheim – Return of the Neocons

Keir Milburn and Bertie Russell - What can an institution do? Towards Public-Common partnerships and a new common-sense

Cinzia Arruzza - From Women’s Strikes to a New Class Movement: The Third Feminist Wave

Endnotes – The Holding Pattern

Salvage Editorial Collective - Salvage Perspectives #6: Evidence of Things Not Seen

Out of the Woods - The Uses of Disaster

The Dig - The Green New Deal with Kate Aronoff

Madeline Lane-McKinley - #MeToo From Below

What’s going on with Change the Rules? A report from the Melbourne Delegates Meeting 25th September

Jobs You Can Count On – a secure work future for Australia

Goodbye Neoliberalism

Class War #73 Class War is Dead…Lone Live the Class War

The Universalism Debate

Voice of the People: The White Australia Policy (1962)

Living The Dream with the Anti-Poverty Network Queensland

Tue, 09 Oct 2018 00:49:18 -0500

In this episode Dave (@withsobersenses) chats with Andrew(@fernandre3000) and Feargal(@feargal89) from the Anti-Poverty Network Qld. We talk about what they have been up to, what their strategy is and how this has gone. APN Qld are one of the most exciting developments going on in Queensland right now with friends and comrades leaving old and stale forms of activism behind to experiment with organising based on where people are at and in ways that directly speak to lived conditions. It is exciting stuff.

APN have a conference coming up We Deserve A Living - Anti-Poverty Week Conference 2018

We talk about:

‘We had Marx, they had Pauline’: left organising in poor communities by Joanna Horton

Working for the class: The praxis of the Wollongong Out of Workers’ Unionby Nick Southall

Music by Gang of Four

Living The Dream with a UBI whilst fighting against racism and for public housing

Wed, 26 Sep 2018 07:47:26 -0500

In this episode Dave(@withsobersenses) chats again with Michael. We talk about a recent article he wrote on Universal Basic Income and the debates it sparked with proponents of a Jobs Guarantee, his attendance at and thoughts on Tim Soutphommasane’s recent Whitlam Institute speech on combating racism, and Michael’s participation in recent struggles for increased Public Housing.

Stuff we mention includes:

Michael Thorn – Is There Room for Universal Basic Income in Australia

Tim Soutphommasane - Confronting the Return of Race Politics

The Australian Unemployed Workers’ Union

Living the Dream after the Plebiscite and amongst the Alt-Right

Sun, 16 Sep 2018 22:04:09 -0500

In this episode Dave (@withsobersenses) and Jon (@jonpiccini) catch up with Simon Copland (@SimonCopland) ‏ again. We talk about how despite the plebiscite being a fantastic victory the Left (for lack of a better term) seems determined to see it as a defeat and what the impact of this is. Simon also talks about going to, live tweeting from and then writing about a recent Lauren Southern and Stefan Molyneux talk and his thoughts about how the struggle against reaction can be renovated.

Things we mention include:

Simon Copland - Racists on speaking tour: rethinking our response

Alison Pennington - On the Plebiscite: Beyond Defeatism, Moralism and the Politics of Scarcity

Red Action - Declaration Of Independence

You can find Simon’s work here and our older episode with him here .

Living The Dream with the National Disability Insurance Scheme Ep 2

Wed, 05 Sep 2018 00:28:05 -0500

In this episode Dave (@withsobersenses) chats with friend of the show Michael. Michael talks about how the NDIS has changed the experience of those that work in care and community services, how it has impacted work conditions and how it has undermined the kind of care that those on the NDIS receive. We also talk about what does this mean for struggle around these issues? What are the unions doing? What are the workers doing? How does this impact with a larger question about the struggle against poverty in Australian society?

This is the second show we have done on the NDIS. Our first episode can be found here

Living The Dream with the Communist Party of Australia and Indigenous Struggles in the 1920s and 30s

Tue, 21 Aug 2018 01:32:22 -0500

In this episode Dave(@withsobersenses) and Jon (@jonpiccini) chat with Padraic Gibson (@paddygibson) about his research into the Communist Party of Australia and its early, or lack there of, engagement with Indigenous struggles in the 1920s and 30s. Not only is the history fascinating but Paddy also really digs into what was wrong with socialist and communist thought at the time, and the inheritance of Marx and Engel’s work, that made it hard for the CPA to connect with these struggles. How and why did this change? And how do these concerns play out today?

Sadly Jon’s internet dropped out 15 or 20 minutes into the conversation

Paddy is a member of Solidarity and his work can be found there.

Paddy would like to acknowledge that the history about the links between the Garvyist movement and Aboriginal activists in Australia in the 1920s he talks about comes from John Maynard’s book Fight for Liberty and Freedom

Paddy was nominated as an interviewee by John Passant when John donated to Living the Dream. Thanks John!

Living The Dream with The Maritime Defence Committee during the 1998 Wharf Dispute

Wed, 27 Jun 2018 00:56:46 -0500

It has been twenty years since the Wharf Dispute between Patrick Stevedores and the Coalition Government on one side and the Maritime Union of Australia, the Trade Unions and supporters on the other. This was (so far) the last set piece national confrontation between Capital and Labour over a specific industrial dispute to happen in Australia. In this episode Dave (@withsobersenses) chats with Nick Southall about the Maritime Defence Committee. The latter was formed by comrades outside of the industry to provide meaningful support for the struggle. What happened during the dispute and are there implications for class struggle today?

Articles mention include

Nick Southall Getting the Gong – A Tale of Two Cities

Shane Reside Rules made for breaking: beyond ‘Change the Rules’

Picture: A Banner on the Main Gate of Patrick Stevedores East Swanson Dock in Melbourne.
© Takver. http://www.takver.com/

Living the Dream whilst the Global Order fractures

Thu, 21 Jun 2018 17:53:01 -0500

What the hell is going on globally? In this (short) episode Dave (@withsobersenses) tries to think through the fracturing of the global order: the split in the G7, the end of QE by the US Federal Reserve and the ECB and the looming possibility of more US tariffs on Chinese imports. How do we understanding these phenomena? Why are they happening and what does it all mean?

This is our 50th Episode!

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard

Civil China-hosted summit contrasts with G7 turmoil

Music by Wall of Voodoo

Living The Dream in the time of #metoo Part 2

Sat, 16 Jun 2018 21:01:44 -0500

This is Part 2 of our 2-part show with Tanya Serisier about #metoo, feminism and the struggle against gendered and sexual violence. This show fleshes out the problems of the notion of consent as a solution to gendered and sexual violence, the continuing importance of the lessons of 70s feminism, including much-maligned lesbian separatism, how feminism has forced a rethink of what politics and power is and we finish with Tanya’s reflections on the recent UCU strike and what it shows us about radical and collective struggles.

Some stuff we mention includes:

Wendy Brown Moralism as Anti-politics

Critical Resistance

Tanya Serisier Is Consent Sexy

Judith Butler Sexual Consent: Some Thoughts on Psychoanalysis and Law

Nancy Fraser Feminism, Capitalism And The Cunning Of History

Adriana Cavarero In Spite of Plato

Living The Dream in the time of #metoo Part 1

Fri, 01 Jun 2018 22:34:01 -0500

This episode is part one of a two-part interview with feminist scholar and activist Tanya Serisier. Tanya and Dave(@withsobersenses) discuss how #metoo can be understood in the history of feminist struggle against, and thought about, gendered sexual violence. Tanya discusses how complex these issues are: they evade easy answers and they bring up difficult questions about where such violence comes from and how struggle and speech against them sometimes breaks from the broader patterns of power and sometimes reinforces them.

Tanya’s research work and writing can be found here

Living The Dream in Ipswich

Mon, 21 May 2018 06:13:50 -0500

In this episode of Living The Dream (@withsobersenses) chats with Aaron and Michelle at Bad Habit Recordsabout what’s happening in Ipswich. The council is engulfed in a corruption scandal (complete with bashings in the forest), the centre of the town is in dire straits caught between neglect and a development project, the local economy is suffering except for a massive real estate venture in Springfield and the plan for a new, and hotly contested, super dump in New Chum. In the face of all this Aaron and Michelle are doing their bit stoking the embers of alternative culture and trying to bring to fruition a different vision for the city.

You should read Ipswich Underground

Post card image courtesy of Future Ipswich

Music by Scraps

Living The Dream with Marx's Theories of Crisis

Sat, 19 May 2018 22:46:33 -0500

This episode is a recording from Marx200 Brisbane of Dave's (@withsobersenses) presentation on Marx's Theories of Crisis .

Music by Stereolab

Living The Dream at Labour Day 2018

Mon, 07 May 2018 07:18:17 -0500

In this episode Dave (@withsobersenses) grabs a recorder and heads to the Labour Day rally. He interviews friends and comrades about the rally, what they think the impact of #ChangeTheRules has been, and if there is any opportunity to broaden and open up struggle? Due to a moments hestitation he didn't try to interview Sally McManus as she walked past.

Music by Alistair Hulet

Living The Dream during Trump's Trade War

Sat, 14 Apr 2018 05:53:06 -0500

In this episode of Living The Dream Dave (@withsobersenses) tries to start an analysis of the Trump administration’s trade and tariff policy. Why has the Australian Left been so paralysed over this question? What sense can we make of it? How do we understand the policies of the state in the broader dynamics of world capitalism?

Stuff mentioned includes:

U.S. Admits That Politics Was Behind Steel Tariffs(not a Brazilian paper but a US paper reporting on US representatives talking to Brazilian business leaders)

Midnight Notes Collective – Introduction to The New Enclosures

II Rubin – A History of Economic Thought

Music by the Levon Helm Band

Living The Dream with the National Disability Insurance Scheme

Sun, 08 Apr 2018 06:39:01 -0500

In this episode Dave (@withsobersenses) chats with Vanamali Hermans (@VChristabel) about the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS). Whilst billed as ‘the most significant economic and social reform since the introduction of Medicare in the 1970s’ Vanamali shows how the NDIS often means the reduction in services for those with disabilities and bureaucratic hellishness. We discuss why this is so, the compounding issue of inequality in regional health delivery and the struggles and strategies both developing and possible. This is the first of possibly a few episodes on the NDIS.

Due to incurable idiocy Dave’s levels are still too low. (Sorry)

Articles mentioned incomed:

Vanamali Hermans

Tim Lyons:

Organising Ourselves: rebuilding Australian unions

Precarias a la Deriva

A Very Careful Strike - Four hypotheses.

Living The Dream in the feminist moment

Wed, 21 Mar 2018 23:01:48 -0500

In this episode of Living the Dream Jon (@jonpiccini) and Dave (@withsobersenses) chat with Eleanor Robertson (@marrowing) about if we are living in a feminist moment and what that means. We focus our conversation on two of her articles from Meanjin. We discuss why it is that so much of contemporary feminism focuses on representations in popular culture – what does that tell us about both feminism and popular culture? From here we talk about the complex history of 2nd Wave feminism, the limitations of the intersectionality/class debate and then move into broader discussion about the possibilities of radical politics. Is there any value in radical reformist projects? When capital so dominates our lives what’s the possibility for radical collective self-activity? We return to the common questions we dwell on at Living the Dream: is there any role for agency and if so what kind? What can and is to be done?

Articles, people and things we talk about include:

Eleanor Robertson Get mad and get even

Eleanor Robertson Intersectional Identity and the Path to Progress

Amber A’lee Frost All Worked Up and Nowhere to Go

Moishe Postone

Maria Mies

Paolo Virno Virtuosity and Revolution: The Political Theory of Exodus

Monsieur Dupont Nihilist Communism

E.P Thompson The making of the English Working Class

The Combahee River Collective Statement

Endnotes

Wildcat Migration and national social democracy in Britain

Nothing is Ever Lost

Living The Dream antipolitically

Mon, 19 Feb 2018 07:34:14 -0500

In this episode of Living the Dream Jon (@jonpiccini) and Dave (@withsobersenses) talk with Tad Tietze (@Dr_Tad) about the idea of antipolitics he developed with Elizabeth Humphrys(@liz_beths). We talk about what politics is and how it relates to capitalism and the state. Tad argues that politics is increasingly detached from society and what this means and how communism as ‘the real movement’ can and should related to politics. Tad argues that this analysis has serious and devastating implications for what we call The Left and Activism. We debate if there is any role, before the emergence of social movements, for the agency of anticapitalists.

We are currently trying to raise some cash to improve our recording capabilities. You can donate here

Tad provided the following reading list

On anti-politics in general (with Liz Humphrys): https://left-flank.org/2013/10/31/anti-politics-elephant-room/

On anti-politics and neoliberalism (with Liz Humphrys): https://oxfordleftreview.com/olr-issue-14/tad-tietze-and-elizabeth-hymphreys-anti-politics-and-the-illusions-of-neoliberalism/

On Greece: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/08/syriza-referendum-podemos-austerity/

On Australia: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/09/labor-tony-abbott-rudd-gillard-shorten/

On Trump: https://left-flank.org/2016/01/25/the-trump-paradox-a-rough-guide-for-the-left/

On recuperating politics: https://left-flank.org/2017/02/03/why-better-politics-cant-make-anti-politics-go-away/

The Piping Shrike on Corbyn: http://www.pipingshrike.com/2017/06/the-confusions-of-anti-politics-uk-edition-an-update.html

We also mention a debate between Plan C and Angry Workers of the World over Directional Demands

Living The Dream in 2018

Wed, 31 Jan 2018 01:23:15 -0500

Welcome to 2018! In this episode Jon (@JonPiccini) and Dave (@withsobersenses) look into the swirling mists of the crystal ball of class struggle and try to work out what’s going on in 2018 and what happened in 2017. It’s a wide ranging chat about race, class, Invasion Day, strikes that didn’t happen and plebiscites. Will the experiments in radical social democracy continue to gain traction? What’s #changetherules all about? What plans do thinkers for capital have if any at all? Is capital accumulation chugging along nicely or is a debt fuelled financial crisis about to explode? What about bananacoin? All this and more!

Stuff we talk about includes:

Novara Media - Faultlines: Liz Fekete on Racism, Europe and the New Right

Ben Pennings - Buying Time To Beat Adani

Tony Birch – On Sovereignty

Endnotes – The Holding Pattern

IMF - World Economic Outlook Update, January 2018

IMF – Credit Booms – Is China Different

Uluru -Statement from the Heart

Humphrey McQueen - 150 years young Marx's Capital

Living The Dream in Global Union Federations

Sun, 03 Dec 2017 23:50:45 -0500

Workers of the world unite, right? Okay, but how? This is a special episode where Shane Reside, an organiser with the International Transport Workers Federation, interviews Jamie K McCallum (@jamiekmccallum) author of Global Unions, Local Power: The New Spirit of Transnational Labor Organizing about a new kind of labour internationalism: the global union federation. What are they? Where did they come from? Are they any good? Do they challenge the inequalities between workers in the North and South or recreate them? How useful are the Global Framework Agreements that they use? Focusing on the history and experience of UNI Global Union Shane and Jamie talk about all this and more. There are no easy answers here. Whether you think the union makes us strong (you know who you are) or that unions are forces of recuperation (as do you) this is a must-listen-to conversation about the real experience of the global labour institutions.

Living The Dream Whilst #qldvotes2017

Mon, 20 Nov 2017 09:14:19 -0500

In this special #qldvotes2017 episode of Living The Dream Jon (@jonpiccini) and Dave (@withsobersenses) engage in all the froth and illusion of electoral politics. We chat about the broader situation in Queensland and the impact of the slowdown of capital accumulation and the rise in state debt and the general degeneration of all the major parties. What is the ALP government all about and why is it so boring? What is left of the LNP and what kind of reactionary mindblowingness is One Nation engaged in now? Why are power bills rising and why are the mainstream solutions so shit?

We end the podcast with a chat about the revitalised and radical campaign of the Greens. Can this contribute to radically changing society? What are its promises and what are its limitations? Can elections play any role in anti-capitalist strategy? If so what? Is this a new way forward or old-school recuperation?

Some of the stuff we mention is:

Policing Newman’s Crisis: Law and order, hegemony and the State

Roads to Nowhere – Capital’s Plan A

Thwaites Report

Grattan Institute on Energy

Refusing Survival: What Happens If We Don’t Save the World From Climate Change?

by Nicholas Beuret

Living The Dream Amidst A Non-Binding Postal Survey On Same-Sex Marriage

Sat, 07 Oct 2017 05:11:50 -0500

Australia is currently in the midst of a non-binding postal survey on same-sex marriage and it seems likely that the ‘Yes’ vote will win by a massive majority. Yet the ‘Left’ and supporters of same-sex marriage seem miserable and downcast about this. In this episode Simon Copland (@SimonCopland) helps Jon (@jonpiccini) and Dave (@withsobersenses) make sense of it all. We talk about the role that homophobia and sexuality plays in capitalism, the histories of Queer struggles within neoliberalism, and how certain sections of the Yes campaign have internalised a pessimistic perspective about people and democracy. We finish on a high-note about what the expected resounding Yes vote will mean for Australian society and the possibility of further struggles. This episode starts with Dave mispronouncing Simon’s name.

Writers and articles we mention include:

Wendy Brown – States of Injury

Dennis Altman – Homosexual: Oppression and Liberation

Melinda Cooper – Family Values

Interchange – In the Name of the Family: The Moral Uses of Welfare

Sarah Schulman The Gentrification of the Mind

Queers Podcast

Music by Bob. B Soxx and the Blues Jeans and by Dark Blue

Marx’s Textbook Ep.2: The basic dynamics of capitalism

Wed, 20 Sep 2017 22:50:30 -0500

In episode 2 of Marx’s Textbook Dave (@withsobersenses) looks at two very different ways of understanding the broad dynamics of capitalism. Mainstream economics asks us to think of capitalism as simply a system of wealth creation and consider questions of what is or isn’t an efficient use of resources and when or if the state should intervene; whilst Marx argues that capitalism is primarily compelled by the drive to make profits and accumulate capital, the source of which is the exploitation of labour and that it has an inherent tendency to crisis and creates the material possibilities of a better society – communism. Which approach is correct? (Spoiler: it is Marx’s – capitalism is a profit driven system of exploitation with a tendency to crisis and we are its gravediggers).

Bibliography

Littleboy, Bruce, Akila Weerapana, and John B Taylor. 2013. Macroeconomics : Principles and Practice. Asia Pacific: Cengage Learning Australia ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com.ezproxy.library.uq.edu.au/lib/uql/detail.action?docID=1990996.

Marx, Karl. 1990. Capital: A Critique of Political Economy. Translated by Ben Fowkes. Vol. 1. London: Penguin Classics.

Marx, Karl. 1991. Capital: A Critique of Political Economy. Translated by David Fernbach. Vol. 3. London: Penguin Books in association with New Left Review.

Marx, Karl. 1992. Capital: A Critique of Political Economy. Translated by David Fernbach. Vol. 2. London: Penguin Classics.

Marx’s Textbook Ep.1: An Introduction to the Critique of Capitalism & of Economics

Wed, 30 Aug 2017 07:12:01 -0500

Marx’s Textbook Ep.1: An Introduction to the Critique of Capitalism & of Economics

This is the first episode of a new Living The Dream series entitled Marx’s Textbook. In each episode Dave(@withsobersenses) takes a chapter of a basic macroeconomics textbooks –

in this case Littleboy (2013) – summarises the content and then presents how Marx can help us think about these issues and challenge the dominant assumptions. What we find is that Marx doesn’t just provide different answers rather he compels us to ask different questions. Each episode will only be approx. 30 minutes long and is aimed at helping people to understand and critique both capitalism and economics as an ideology. No prior knowledge of Marx or macroeconomics is required.

Further reading: “Capital”after MEGA: Discontinuities, Interruptions, and New Beginnings

Michael Heinrich

Littleboy, Bruce, et al.,. 2013. Macroeconomics : Principles and Practice. Asia Pacific: Cengage Learning Australia ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com.ezproxy.library.uq.edu.au/lib/uql/detail.action?docID=1990996.

Living The Dream with Free Money #UBI

Wed, 26 Jul 2017 08:14:40 -0500

In this episode of Living the Dream Jon (@jonpiccini) and Dave (@withsobersenses) talk with all-round good egg Troy Henderson (@TroyCHenderson) about the idea of a Universal Basic Income. Troy provides us with an intellectual history and we discuss if it is a techbro attempt to sure up capitalism, a radical social democratic attempt to fix capitalism or if it contains radical elements that point in an anti-capitalist direction? We also talk about why a Jobs Guarantee is horrid and shit.

Some stuff we may have mentioned or should have:

Helen Razer UBI is just a bedtime story Elon Musk tells himself to help the super-wealthy sleep

Bill Mitchell A basic income guarantee is a neo-liberal strategy for serfdom without the work

Nick Srnicek and Alex Williams Inventing the Future Postcapitalism and a World Without Work

Antonio Negri Benoît Hamon and Universal Income

Immaterial Workers of the World (Paolo Virno) What Did I Tell You?

Andrew Leigh Why a universal basic income is a terrible idea

Chapo Trap House Episode 123 - UBIsoft feat. Clio Chang (7/10/17)

Music includes Soft Pink Things and The Business both covering CRASS

Living The Dream after the UK General Election

Fri, 16 Jun 2017 07:30:12 -0500

In this episode of Living The Dream Dave (@withsobersenses) talks with Craig Gent from Novara Media. We talk about the recent UK General Election and the surprisingly good result Labour under Jeremy Corbyn received. Craig tells us about how Novara have chosen to orientate to Corybn and elections, the contradictions of social democracy and what the election may or may not mean for larger anticapitalist practice.

These contradictions are represented artistically by starting the show with a sample of Corbyn reading Shelley and finishing with a classic anti-parliamentary anarchist banger by Chumbawamba – representing the wide gamut of UK radicalism in verse and song.

Articles we mention include:

4 Reasons Working-Class Radicals Should Vote Labour on 7 May

Where We Go From Here – Richard Seymour

12 Reasons to Vote Green in this General Election

5 Reasons Why I Won’t Vote in #GE2015

Global Economic Prospects: A Fragile Recovery – World Bank

Living The Dream under The Accord

Fri, 02 Jun 2017 07:46:03 -0500

In this episode of Living the Dream Jon (@JonPiccini) and Dave (@withsobersenses) are joined by Liz Humphrys (@liz_beths) who torpedos the hagiography of the ALP Hawke-Keating government. Whilst the talking heads of the ALP like Van Badham and Wayne Swan argue over if the Hawke-Keating government was mainly excellent with a few flaws or really excellent with none, Liz’s ground breaking work on the Accord shows how the latter was the central plank of the implementation of neo-liberalism in Australia and the method of delivering an epoch defining defeat to the working class and the decomposition of our power. Not one for pointless pessimism Liz also gives us some key insights from this history that can help us recompose a viable anticapitalist project today.

Liz’s work can be found at:

An Integral State

Left Flank

How Labour Made Neoliberalism (with Damien Cahill)

And we take umbrage at these confused musings of and about Australian Laborism:

Australian Labor led centre-left parties into neoliberalism. Can they lead it out?

Labour has a chance if it replaces Corbyn. Look at Australia in 1983

The Hawke-Keating agenda was Laborism, not neoliberalism, and is still a guiding light

For those interested in the subject matter of this podcast the Brisbane Labour History Association is presenting the Alex Macdonald lecture: Labor, labour and Australia in the 1980s feature historian Frank Bongiorno 7th June 5.30 for 6.00pm at the QCU Building, 16 Peel St,, South Brisbane.

This podcast contains music from Painters and Dockers that encapsulates the feel of Australia in the 1980s

Living The Dream in the Trade Union movement

Sat, 01 Apr 2017 23:11:24 -0500

In this episode of Living the Dream Dave (@withsobersenses) chats with Godfrey Moase (@gemoase) the General Branch Assistant Secretary of the National Union of Workers. Godfrey had a number of criticisms of our last show . We talk about these and Godfrey also addresses the broader strategic and tactical possibilities for anticapitalist struggle and how they relate to trade unions.

You can find some of Godfrey’s writings here:

Maintain the wage rage (with Carina Garland)
Defending Australian Labor
The case for a 30-hour working week
Absorbing Corbyn

Other things we mention include:

The Young Workers Centre
The Wollongong Out-of-Workers Union

Music by The Sweatshop Union

Living The Dream after your #penaltyrates got cut

Thu, 23 Mar 2017 05:59:16 -0500

In this episode Jon (@jonpiccini) and Dave (@withsobersenses) talk about the recent cuts to penalty rates by the Fair Work Commission . We dismiss the idea that this attack is actual just a product of ‘the Right’; rather it is a continuation of the 100+ year tradition of arbitration supported by the ALP and the mainstream of the ACTU in the context of the real contradictions of capital accumulation. We discuss the movement against penalty rate cut as well as the Big Steps walk off of early childcare educators and the challenges the class faces to recomposing our power and secure emancipation.

Stuff we mention includes

Mazel Tov Cocktail podcast

Fair Work Commission 4 yearly review of modern awards – Penalty Rates

Elizabeth Humphrys, ‘Australia Under The Accord (1983-1996)’

A Fiery Defence Of Sally McManus: Thank Civil Disobedience For The Gains Of Today

The problem with ‘Join your union’

In Defense Of The “Apex Gang”

Insights into Low Wage Growth in Australia

Top industrial judge resigns in disgust over 'biased' system

Music by Barrett Strong

Living the Dream whilst fighting for your #righttothecity

Fri, 17 Feb 2017 02:42:57 -0500

In a special episode of Living The Dream, Max and Natalie (@DrNatOsborne) join Jon (@JonPiccini) to discuss radical happenings in Brisbane of late. We talk about the election of Jonathon Sri in the Brisbane City Council elections of last year, why Brisbane is experiencing such a strong wave of ‘right to the city’ activism and how these two interconnect. Musings on the interconnections between social movements and elections, the global and the local and culture and politics abound.
South Brisbane Greens - https://www.facebook.com/SouthBrisbaneGreens/
Right to the City Brisbane - https://www.facebook.com/righttothecitybrisbane/
tactical urbanism - http://tacticalurbanismguide.com/
Warriors of the Aboriginal Resistance - https://www.facebook.com/WARcollective/
Jonathon Sri, Councillor for the Gabba - https://www.facebook.com/jonno.sri/
Henri Lefebvre - https://chisineu.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/lefebvre-henri-writings-on-cities.pdf

Music by the Mouldy Lovers - which was the painfully obvious choice.

Living the Dream drops the #Bernardibomb

Wed, 08 Feb 2017 05:29:31 -0500

In this episode of Living the Dream Jon (@jonpiccini) and Dave (@withsobersenses) have a very quick chat about Cory Bernardi quitting the Liberal party. We discuss how this is more evidence of the breakdown of politics/the rise of antipolitics; the attempts by the RBA to keep capital accumulation going through monetary policy whilst everything crumbles around them and what this means for radical strategy and tactics.

Stuff we mention includes:

Leftflank

National Press Club: Malcolm Turnbull

National Press Club: Bill Shorten

Unlegislated measures carried forward in the budget estimates—
February 2017 update

Novara Media

The Linguistic Nature of Money and Finance

Chart Pack Graphs on the Australian Economy and Financial Markets

Statement by Philip Lowe, Governor: Monetary Policy Decision

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_5EFhzROqw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wczfhXVYbxg

Antonio Negri Logic and Theory of Inquiry: militant praxis as subject and as episteme

Music from Fat White Family

Living the Dream in 2017

Fri, 27 Jan 2017 06:16:37 -0500

In this episode of Living The Dream Jon (@jonpiccini ) and Dave (@withsobersenses) go through the entrails with an inverted periscope to try to see what we should expect for 2017. We chat about Invasion Day and the rising tide of Indigenous struggles, the Centrelink debacle, anti-Road protests and more. We are pretty optimistic about the year ahead and look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Articles, people and groups we mentioned or are relevant:

Warriors of the Aboriginal Resistance –WAR

Celeste Liddle

Amy McQuire

Police Clash With Flag-Burning Protesters At Invasion Day March In Sydney

http://twitter.com/AllanJClarke/status/824442249903697922?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

White Purity

The Safety Pin and the Swastika

How the Centrelink debt debacle failure rate is much worse than we all thought

Adani coalmine activists gear up to fight: ‘This will dwarf the Franklin blockade’

www.theguardian.com/embed/video/australia-news/video/2015/mar/25/aboriginal-adani-carmichael-coalmine-queensland-protest-video

Cottle, A. (2011), 'The Colour-line and the Third Period: A Comparative Analysis of American and Australian Communism and the Question of Race, 1928-1934', American Communist History, vol 10, no 2 , pp 119 - 131.

Working for the Class: The Praxis of the Wollongong Out of Workers’ Union

Anti Poverty Network SA

unite

We play music from A.B. Original and DISPOSSESSED They are rad – support them.

#WTF2016 ? Living The Dream takes the down bound Trump Train out of here

Thu, 22 Dec 2016 05:59:49 -0500

In this episode of Living the Dream Jon (@jonpiccini) and Dave (@withsobersenses) talk about the weird as hell political environment of the Age of Trump. Was 2016 the worst year ever? Are we caught in the midst of a rising reactionary wave? And why do the failures of the liberal establishment feel to so many people to be failures of the Left? (And what is the Left? Are we the Left?) What’s with the amateur sociology about voting demographics that is everywhere now? Do we really have to choose between identity politics and Left economic populism? Where can we draw hope from and what about the historical experience of working class anti-racism? All this and more!

Articles/organisations we refer to include:

Behind the News with Doug Henwood

Hard Crackers From A Small New England Town As Told To Noel Ignatiev

The Weimar Analogy

KING: There’s a huge education level drop-off with the Trump cabinet picks

Tsiolkas - The Second Coming The Politics Of Rage Won’t Let Us Listen To One Another

Many in Milwaukee Neighborhood Didn’t Vote — and Don’t Regret It

It Was My Primal Scream

Revolutionary Hillbilly: An Interview With Hy Thurman of the Young Patriots Organization

Ghassan Hage – Recalling anti-racism

Knives out for Hanson staffer Ashby, accused of profiting off candidates

redneckrevolt

The great student swindle: how young people are being ripped off

Music by Sharon Jones and Dap-kings and Joe Pug

And watch this footage of this amazing meeting between the Black Panthers and the Young Patriots.

Living the Dream whilst Organising in Your Workplace

Sun, 11 Dec 2016 07:24:06 -0500

In this episode of Living The Dream, Dave (@withsobersenses ) chats with Carmen about the Workplace Organising 101 training she recently provided in Brisbane. Carmen talks about the purpose and structure of this training, its relationship to anarcho-syndicalism and reflects critically on the contribution it can play to developing our collective power and overcoming capitalism.

Organisations mentioned include:

Brisbane IWW

Freie Arbeiterinnen- und Arbeiter-Union (FAU)

Music by Dolly Parton and Marianne Faithful

Living the Dream has an #altright time in Melbourne

Wed, 07 Dec 2016 04:48:41 -0500

In this episode of Living the Dream Dave (@withsobersenses) chats with Kieran (@Kieran Bennett) about a recent Melbourne counter-rally to a Trump celebration rally ostensibly organised by #altright types and attended by local fascists and neo-Nazis. From here Kieran lets us know who is who in the fascist zoo in Australia, the social phenomena behind the far-right and we discuss what a relevant anti-capitalist practice might be that can defeat the fascists and offer a genuine emancipatory alternative to the issues that we all face.

Kieran blogs at Kieran’s Review and is a member (of the perhaps soon to be rebranded) Anarchist Affinity

Articles and things we refer to include:

Angry Workers of the World

Ghassan Hage – Recalling Anti-racism

Ben Hillier – ‘All that is holy was profaned’: the year that was, and the politics we need (Ben recommends you also read ‘Post-truth politics’ isn’t peak populism, it’s peak liberal capitalism and suggests that my read of his argument is wrong.)

Campaign Against Racism and Fascism

Do We Need To Talk About Donald? Living the Dream on the US Election

Wed, 02 Nov 2016 14:54:57 -0500

In this episode of Living The Dream Jon (@jonpiccini) and Dave (@withsobersenses) talk about the US Election and the phenomenon of Donald Trump. We aren’t interest so much is speculations about what is going on in the US but rather what the different ways Trump and Clinton are talked about in Australia tells us about what is going on in Australia.

Articles we refer to include:

Debating Deplorables: How the Left Can (and Cannot) Win Trump Voters

Sympathy for the Devil?

Theses on the New European Fascism

Time to hail Hillary Clinton – and face down the testosterone left

How the working class became white

Queer Kids for Full Communism: Living the Dream with the Queer Liberation Front

Tue, 20 Sep 2016 05:48:14 -0500

In this episode of Living the Dream Dave (@withsobersenses) chats with Angus from the Queer Liberation Front. Angus lets us know what the QLF are all about, what they have been doing and what they are up to. Angus talks about the QLF's praxis and how this collective of young queer people are attempting to generate a radical anticapitalist politics, how hegemony and aesthetics fit together and how this all relates to the current "Brisbane Moment' that is going on. And then we finish it all off with a track from Los Crudos

On dissolving the people: Living the Dream on #ausvotes2016

Thu, 14 Jul 2016 07:55:00 -0500

In this episode of LivingThe Dream Jon (@jonpiccini) and Dave (@withsobersenses) have a chat aboutthe recent election. It isn’t a chat about if the result is ‘good’ or ‘bad’but rather how does it fit into, and what does it tell us, about the current momentin capitalism in Australia and class struggle?We also try to work out therelationship between the electoral return of Pauline Hanson and the deepcurrent of racism in Australia.

These articles are some we either mention or are on topic

TheElection That Solved Nothing – Tad Tietze

TheAnti–Industrial Relations Club – Frank Bongiorno

The Greens are aparty of the affluent middle classes – Ben Hillier

Howwe stopped Pauline Hanson last time – Tess Lee Ack

TheyDon’t Represent Us: The Populist Moment – Richard Seymour

Crisisand the Return to the Nation: Dismantling the Right Ecology in Germany –Ben L

Fourwomen arrested in WestConnex protest – Wendy Bacon

Watch Ask Sarkar's The Unbearable Whiteness of Brexit - Race, class & the EU Referendum on the streets of Barking.

Colgan, Paul. 2016. Australian Voters Just Put The EntirePolitical Establishment On Notice. Business Insider [cited 14th July 2016].Available from http://www.businessinsider.com.au/australian-election-result-voters-put-political-establishment-on-notice-2016-7.

Phillips, Ben. 2016. Trends in Household Living Standards in Australia: 1990 to 2016.ANU Centre for Social Research and Methods [cited 14th July 2016]. Availablefrom http://rsss.anu.edu.au/sites/default/files/Living_Standards_Mar_2016.pdf.

#SandersofSthBrisbane ? Council elections, social movements & the #RighttotheCity

Thu, 16 Jun 2016 06:05:03 -0500

In this episode of Living the Dream Jon (@JonPiccini ) andDave (@withsobersenses) chat with Anna – all-round good egg and comrade pivotalto Radio Reversal and Brisbane Free University –about the successful Brisbane City Council election campaign of Jonathan Sri , the opposition to the WestVillage development and the emergence of struggles around the Right to theCity. What’s going on, how do all these pieces fit together and what do theytell us about struggles within-against-and-beyond capitalism for lives ofdignity?

Living the Dream - Last Drinks in (the workers) Paradise?

Mon, 14 Mar 2016 23:02:07 -0500

In this episode of Living the Dream Jon (@JonPiccini) and Dave( @withsobersenses) talk about the meltdown of politics in Queensland and the failure of the ALP government to carry out a coherent plan to address the decline in capital accumulation and facilitate social reproduction. Rob Pyne resigning from Labor(#corbynofcairns ?), candidates sending dicks pics and the shared anti-political language of both sides of the referendum campaign show a political class in freefall and deeply out of touch with the concerns of everyday people.

Should we care? Or just point and laugh? What is the relationship of the political to capitalism on a whole and to our struggle against it? How much of this is this a broader and global phenomenon and what can it tell us about life in Queensland?

Articles we refer to include:

The State Infrastructure Plan

Humphrey McQueen - Queensland: a state of mind

Kathleen McLeod - “I Will Protect You With My Body” The Case For A Radical Sanctuary Movement To Protect Asylum Seekers In Australia

Andy Paine - Rewriting the political script

Chris O’Kane - State Violence, State Control: Marxist State Theory and the Critique of Political Economy

Mario Tronti – The Political (1979)

Left Flank and An Integral State

Living The Dream 'Dominant Society Needs A Slap in the Face': Sovereignty Solidarity & Decolonisation

Tue, 09 Feb 2016 06:44:59 -0500

In this episode of Living the Dream Dave (@withsobersenses) chats with Camilla and Eliza from Sovereignty Solidarity.

Sovereignty Solidarity describes their Facebook page as follows:

‘We aim to support First Nations(FN) initiatives for self determination, sovereignty, treaties, and moving forward. We take action based on our understanding of these perspectives and aim to concretely support FN initiatives. We are a non-FN specific page because we believe non-FN peoples have specific de-colonisation work that we need to do, and that the burden for this should be placed on FN peoples. We welcome input, criticism and support from FN people’

Camilla and Eliza have provided the following relevant links:

Decolonizing Solidarity

First Nations

brisbane aboriginal-sovereign embassy

voices of the 3

indigenousx

black nations rising

Non-First Nations

not our call facebook

allies decolonising

unsettling minnesota

Eliza would like the following qualification added to the title and the podcast: ‘sometimes dominant society needs a slap in the face, like on the 26th January, but sometimes dominant society needs a more gentle-gentle approach. Learning about the history of this country, the legacy of colonialism and our transplanted

place on this land can be a hard journey and if people need empathy through this process it is other non FN people who should do this work.’

Living the Dream: Welfare, Social Reproduction and Social Impact Bonds

Sun, 24 Jan 2016 06:24:33 -0500

Living the Dream: Welfare, Social Reproduction and Social Impact Bonds

In this episode Dave (@withsobersenses) and Rob talk about how the provision of welfare and social services are changing. We chat about the concept of social reproduction, the welfare state and its evolution and critically investigate new developments. As the mining boom ends, the world teeters on a the edge of another economic meltdown and states struggle with increasing amounts of debt we ask what’s going on with welfare and how can we struggle on this terrain in ways that point to a better life and a better society.

Material referred to includes:

Multi-million dollar 'green bonds' could fund Qld's climate change strategy

Competition Policy Review

Global Social Impact Investment Steering Group

Delivering On Impact: The Australian Advisory Board Breakthrough Strategy To Catalyse Impact Investment

Back ground on Debt and Social Reproduction can be found at Australia you’re standing in it part 2: Debt & Social Reproduction

Everyone should read this issue of Viewpoint on Social Reproduction.

For an inspiring historical of the unemployed struggling over the conditions of welfare see The WOW factor: Wollongong’s unemployed and the dispossession of class and history

And listen to this killer track by Mutant Death (which features an on air argument between the scumbag Bob Hawke and dear comrade and friend Nick)

Living the Dream: Climate, Capitalism & Crisis

Tue, 12 Jan 2016 01:13:18 -0500

In this episode Jon (@jonpiccini) and Dave (@withsobersenses) chat with Jackson who has been an organiser with AYCC and for the Peoples Climate March in Brisbane . We talk about the opposition to the Adani mine project, the PCM, some of the experiences and developments within the climate justice movement, the role NGOs play and how this fits together with a broader understanding of capitalism and our struggles for lives of dignity and justice

Some of the material referred directly, indirectly, in a sly implied way or are kind of relevant are:

George Caffentzis The work/energy crisis and the apocalypse

Nicholas Beuret & Gareth Brown Dancing on the Grave: Salvage, The Walking Dead, and the End of Days

Andrew X Give up activism

Naomi Klein Canada's New Climate Movement

Naomi Klein: Capitalism and the Climate, Festival of Dangerous Ideas 2015

Naomi Klein: This Changes Everything live with Owen Jones - Full Length | Guardian Live

Jacobin on Naomi Klein and the Left

Ellen Evans & Jon Moses Interview With David Graeber

The work of Hayek & Keynes can be found in libraries everywhere.

New Year's Thoughts - Prospects, Predictions, Postulations

Thu, 07 Jan 2016 04:18:57 -0500

In this episode Dave (@withsobersenses) and Jon (@jonpiccini) take some time to reflect on 2015 and go through the entrails to make some predictions about 2016. What happened in 2015 and what does it tell us about capitalism and the struggle against it? And how do we even try to make sense of it all?

Articles and writers mentioned are:

A panel on the work of Lisa Vogel’s Marxism and The Oppression of Women

Prabhat Patnaik on Capitalism and Its Current Crisis

Dave’s previous writing on #TURC can be found here and here

Lara Tingle on POLITICAL AMNESIA How We Forgot How To Govern

Doug Henwood on Age of the Unicorn: How the Fed Tried to Fix the Recession, and Created the Tech Bubble

Richard Barbrook and Andy Cameron on the Californian Ideology

Nick Southall on Getting the Gong – A Tale of Two Cities

Angela Mitropoulo’s work can be found at s0metim3s

Music by Dilemmas

#qldworkersparadise : Sunny times for the working class in Qld under Labor?

Tue, 10 Nov 2015 05:22:18 -0500

On this show Jon (@JonPiccini) and Dave (@withsobersenses) talk about what is going on in Queensland under the ALP. We look at the attempt to fund social reproduction and stimulate capital accumulation in the conditions of the end of the mining boom - all whilst trying to manufacture social peace.

Special attention is given to the Advance Queensland initiative.

From Liberation to Human Rights - changes in the language of critique

Sun, 25 Oct 2015 22:55:40 -0500

Today Jon (@JonPiccini) and Dave (@withsobersenses) will be talking about two recent articles by Jon that trace the changes in key concepts in the languages of activism and the Left (for lack of better terms) and the reasons for and the potential costs of these changes.

The articles discussed are: Human Rights and the Left and Damned Whores and God’s Police, liberation and the power of activist language: A guest post by Jon Piccini

Everything You Know Is Wrong -Conspiracy Theory

Mon, 12 Oct 2015 21:56:33 -0500

After months of silence Living the Dream podcasts are back.

Here we look at the prominence of conspiracy theories, what it is about contemporary capitalism that gives rise to them and what this means for anti-capitalist politics.

Music from Chumbawamba, Total Control, Voight-Kampff, Belgrado, Grey Places and Downtown Boys

Queensland: beautiful one day, workers’ paradise the next?

Thu, 19 Feb 2015 04:04:50 -0500

In this episode of Living the Dream we look at the recent Qld election and try to grapple with what it all means, what the new ALP government is planning to do, what the challenges facing capital accumulation are and where the lines of antagonism may be.

Music from The Saints and Tina Harris

Articles referred include:

Don't Beware Greeks Bearing Gifts Of Lessons For The Left

Economic and Fiscal Challenges: Interim Results of Medium Term Modelling

From the Subprime to the Sovereign Crisis. Why Keynesianism does not work?

Statement on Monetary Policy February 2015

Stranger Choices: Getting ready for the hangover

Fri, 30 Jan 2015 08:00:48 -0500

In part four of our three part series on the Qld election we talk about what can we expect after the votes have been counted and what does this mean for emancipatory politics, where can we draw our hope and power from and what do we mean by ‘we’ anyway?
Music by Razar

Stranger Choices: Qld Uncut - Lessons for tomorrow's struggle

Sun, 25 Jan 2015 06:55:08 -0500

Here in part 3 of our #livingthedream election special Rob reflects on the experience of Qld Uncut and the lessons that can be learnt for social struggles for dignity and emancipation whoever wins the upcoming election.
First track from http://rokumusic.com

Stranger Choices: Pig City! Anti-Politics, Law & Order and Populism

Thu, 15 Jan 2015 17:57:19 -0500

In part two of Stranger Choices we look at the concepts of anti-politics and depoliticisation and how they might help us understand the elections in Queensland. We examine the role law and order plays, the populism of the Palmer United Party and the contradictions, the promise and the problems of a very exceptional Greens candidate Jonathan Sri.

The articles discussed in this podcast are

Anti-politics: Elephant in the room

Policing Newman’s Crisis: Law And Order, Hegemony And The State

Stranger Choices Queensland Election #1: elections, Joh, debt and emancipatory politics

Mon, 12 Jan 2015 03:32:41 -0500

Here is part one of a three part ( hopefully) series about the Queensland election. In this episode Dave and Jon talk about elections and their role in capitalism, the limitation of Left understandings of the Newman government, the link between the global crisis and debt and privatisation in Queensland and more! And we did all of this on our lunchbreak in a noisy café! Sound quality gets better in the 2nd half….

'...from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again': "Really Existing Socialism", Liberalism and Violence

Tue, 30 Dec 2014 03:33:36 -0500

This is part 1 of an attempt to examine the nature and history of "really existing socialism" and the impact this has on attempting to imagine and enact emancipatory politics today. Here I deal with how the very real violence of the party-states is used to ideologically mask the violence of the liberal order.

Living the Dream, Words from Struggle Street #2 No Shelter

Thu, 11 Sep 2014 01:48:53 -0500

No Shelter! A Collective Against Gendered Violence
We talk with Rascal a participant in No Shelter! A Collective Against Gendered Violence about the struggle against the closure of services for survivors of domestic violence, the transformations in the provision of welfare, the role that gender and the home play in contemporary capitalism and more!Rascal has written about these issues here as part of the new blog Full Prole Science

Living the Dream, Words from Struggle Street #1 UOW Uncut

Sun, 07 Sep 2014 20:23:25 -0500

Hey comrades, today we talk with Alexander about the struggle around the budget arising from UOW campus, the limitations and challanges they face, friendship, new potentials and some of the lessons from Japan .This podcast complements an article written by Alexander here

Work, Workers and Organisation Part 2

Sat, 12 Jul 2014 04:12:15 -0500

Hi Comrades Today we are talking with Andrew a comrade who is a teacher in NSW about what's going on for teachers, the union and attempts to struggle and organise.Down with Empire, Up with Spring!

Work, Workers and Organisation Part 1

Mon, 19 May 2014 02:46:08 -0500

This is part one of our investigation into our days at work, experiences of work, the various forms of worker self-activity and the positives and negatives of our experiences with unions. We are talking to Michael who works for Qld Rail. You will hear Renee, Tom, Dave & Rob ( and Arlo in the background).

#HooHaLTD

HooHa - Living the Dream Intro

Mon, 19 May 2014 02:31:59 -0500

Welcome to Living the Dream of the podcast of the HooHaGroup http://thewordfromstrugglestreet.wordpress.com #HooHa LTD