Workers Bush Telegraph

Welcome to 2012! We’d like to wish you all a very Happy New Year, and look forward to seeing you at Foco Nuevo during the year. We’ve been developing a great program for 2012, and we’re starting off with special guests Indigie Femme who are on an Australian tour and local favourites, Yellowbird.

Of course we’ll also have Maggie’s delicious cakes, and welcome back Elena and José with their wonderful Chilean empanadas.

Indigie Femme are one of the most ‘dynamic female indigenous duos’ to hit the music scene. Creative forces merge when the Northern and Southern Hemipheres come together through songs in stories. Tash Terry born and raised on the Navajo Nation and Elena Higgins born in New Zealand of the Maori and Samoan heritage are the powerful musical duo, Indigie Femme.

A twist of world beats lavish the acoustic folk duo who tap into their indigenous roots. Their magical weavings and matrilineal cultures, magnified with their powerful voices, combines thought-provoking, uplifting traditional and original compositions. [website]

Yellowbird is the combined fun of Francesca Lejeune, Pete Lehmann, Tony Moore and Geoff Smith. They’re locally flavoured originals are mellowed by harmonies and ukuleles, combined with various instruments. They sing songs of flooded river systems, parasitic love, circus, and communities of timber and tin.

Jumping Fences: the song-writing partnership of Lachlan Hurse and Sue Monk, play a unique mix of original and Latin American songs, bridging the gap between Australian and World music. Their songs, heard from Brisbane factories to concerts in Havana, have evocative lyrics with compelling vocals and rhythm to match. We’ll be playing with Ross Gwyther on sax and clarinet, Robbie Stewart on lead guitar and Dan Simpson on drums. [website]

Hope to see you there,

Lachlan and Sue

INDIGIE FEMME YELLOW BIRD JUMPING FENCES

Friday February 3, 8.00 p.m.
Kurilpa Hall
174 Boundary StreetWest End
(Next to the West End Library)
$10 / $7 concession
Maggie’s delicious cakes and tea and coffee on sale.
BYO
web www.foconuevo.org.au

A link to an interesting article in The Nation by Naomi Klein as well as other Climate Change News

Thanks Trevor

1. Naomi Klein on the real Climate Revolution

There is an outstanding essay, entitled Capitalism vs. the Climate by Naomi Klein that appeared in the 28 November 2011 issue of The Nation (seehttp://www.thenation.com/article/164497/capitalism-vs-climate?page=0,0) and which was posted on 20th December on The Green Pages (http://www.thegreenpages.com.au/news/page/8/). While she focuses on the almost bizarre political scene in the U.S.A. today where politicians hardly dare to mention climate, much of what she says obviously applies to Australia.

Klein argues that acting on climate change really is part of a revolutionary world change- exactly as right-wing politicians fear, but which many climate activists prefer to deny. The quote below sets the scene for her excellent account.

[The success of climate denialists in the U.S.A.]..means that the climate movement needs to have one hell of a comeback. For this to happen, the left is going to have to learn from the right. Denialists gained traction by making climate about economics: action will destroy capitalism, they have claimed, killing jobs and sending prices soaring. But at a time when a growing number of people agree with the protesters at Occupy Wall Street, many of whom argue that capitalism-as-usual is itself the cause of lost jobs and debt slavery, there is a unique opportunity to seize the economic terrain from the right. This would require making a persuasive case that the real solutions to the climate crisis are also our best hope of building a much more enlightened economic systemone that closes deep inequalities, strengthens and transforms the public sphere, generates plentiful, dignified work and radically reins in corporate power. It would also require a shift away from the notion that climate action is just one issue on a laundry list of worthy causes vying for progressive attention. Just as climate denialism has become a core identity issue on the right, utterly entwined with defending current systems of power and wealth, the scientific reality of climate change must, for progressives, occupy a central place in a coherent narrative about the perils of unrestrained greed and the need for real alternatives.

Building such a transformative movement may not be as hard as it first appears. Indeed, if you ask the Heartlanders, climate change makes some kind of left-wing revolution virtually inevitable, which is precisely why they are so determined to deny its reality. Perhaps we should listen to their theories more closelythey might just understand something the left still doesnt get.

Dont miss this outstanding piece (http://www.thenation.com/article/164497/capitalism-vs-climate?page=0,0).

2. Methane releases and the end of the world.

Further to yesterdays email reference to methane releases in Siberia (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/vast-methane-plumes-seen-in-arctic-ocean-as-sea-ice-retreats-6276278.html) a new entry titled ‘Much ado about methane’ has been posted to RealClimate.org. at : http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=10412, arguing that CO2 is still the real problem.(Thanks to John Ransley for this information).

3. A.F.P. spying on green activists

The Sydney Morning Herald on 7th January 2012 carried the story that the Resources and Energy Minister, Martin Ferguson, has secretly pushed for increased surveillance by federal police intelligence officers of environmental activists who have been protesting peacefully at coal-fired power stations and coal export facilities. Read more at http://www.smh.com.au/environment/afp-spies-targeting-green-activists-20120106-1pogq.html.

Richard Cassels,

Climate Leadership.

Ph. (Australia) 07 3844 0781.

Mob. (Australia) 0400 601 668.

E: richard@climateleadership.com.au.

Web. www.climateleadership.com.au.