Fingerprinting students

The NSW Department of Education has allowed Sydney high schools to use a fingerprint recognition system instead of wasting time with roll call class.

On tonight's National Nine News, Christine Cawsey (principal of Rooty Hill High) said that the system will be used when students arrive at school, go to the canteen and go to the library. Someone else (sorry, I didn't catch her name) said that it will help to monitor student behaviour.

Is this really just a way to make school operations quicker and easier or the latest idea borrowed straight out of 1984? I'm picking the second one, and what's even scarier is that only three parents of students at Rooty Hill High (the school it is being trialed at) have not given permission for the school to fingerprint their children.

It's going to be interesting to see if other schools embrace this Big Brother style technology, and how much resistance there will be to it. There was one man, on the News report who was in opposition to it, though I don't have any quotes from him.

The only news report on the net I have found about this so far is this: LiveNews.

International Food Not Bombs Action Day

This weekend FNB groups all over the world are going to be organising actions part of International Food Not Bombs Action Day(s).

The decision to hold this event came out of a Food Not Bombs convergence earlier this year. The focus of the event will be on resistance to fascism.

From the flyer:

On November 13, 2005 in St. Petersburg, Russian nazis killed 20 year old Timur Kacharava - a student, a musician, an antifascist, our comrade. Timur was attacked on his way from a "Food Not Bombs" action : he served out free vegetarian food to the homeless and people in need.

Today, this FOOD NOT BOMBS global action is devoted to Timur's memory and is taking place in a lot of different countries such as Belarus, France, Russia, UK, Lithuania, Ukraine, USA, Australia...

We are serving food for those who are in need on the streets, in our cities and towns. We want to call your attention to the nazi problem which exists at the moment - and which governments of some countries prefer to ignore. Timur and other people were killed by nazis right in the centres of big cities.

FOOD NOT BOMBS was created during the 80's in the USA as part of the anti-nuclear movement. Now we are everywhere.

FOOD NOT BOMBS : Self-organised groups who are for solidarity, vegetarianism and anti-fascism all over the world.

Daily you pass people who do not have the essentials to live. Why is this happening? Who is profiting from this? Why is nothing changing? We know that if you want to change something - you have to act. We're sure that everybody can act. Today a lot of people will read this leaflet - in different languages – around the whole word.

Tomorrow is a new day and what it will be like depends on you.

On us. On everybody.

The group in Sydney will be doing an action on Saturday November 10 at 2pm at the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in Victoria Park. As well as the international focus of anatifascist solidarity, the group has a local focus of supporting opposition to the Australian government's intervention in Aboriginal communities.

Interest rates rise once again

In a politically charged decision, the Reserve Bank has lifted interest rates for the first time during a federal election campaign.

In a move that underscores its independence, the country's central bank raised its official cash rate by a quarter-point to 6.75 per cent, the highest rate in 11 years.

- theage.com.au

The way I see it, this was always going to happen.

Why? Back in June when the government announced their federal budget for the 2007-08 year, they were implementing expansionary fiscal policy.

This means that compared to last year, they were putting more money back into the economy, stimulating economic growth and thus putting upward pressure on inflation. With Australia's economic growth just within the 3-4% target of sustainable economic growth and last year's rate rise to 6.25% to deal with inflation, I predicted in July that this wouldn't end well.

In addition, giving tax cuts to higher income earners, leaving them with more disposable income and in effect allowing them to spend more. Encouraging people to spend more is only going to increase economic growth and inflationary pressure further.

When I found out today that the cash rate had been raised by the Reserve Bank to 6.75% i wasn't at all surprised. It only reaffirmed my predictions.

Remember the Liberal government's 2004 election scare campaign based on interest rates going up if a Labor goverment? Interest rates increasing three times within the past 18 months, seems like some sort of political backfire to me. Evident in Labor's new TV advertisement, they've been quick to capitalise on this recent change in the economy.

How many white guys in the Liberal Government?

I found this really great video by The Ministry of Truth satirising the Liberal government's recent anti-union advertisements.

It really questions how representative democracy can work in "multicultural Australia" when the government is predominately rich, white and male. Why do we continue participating in elections and living within this system when those who make the decisions aren't even representative of a large amount of people?

I'm sure the Labor party isn't that much better. However, their affirmative action policy would mean they have at least more women than Liberal.

The effect of waste on resource allocation and labour

Without waste, capitalism cannot charge high prices for a flawless aesthetically pleasing product (Essig, 2002)

As our system of capitalism has “progressed” a number of our essential needs have been turned into a commodity. Just as there has been an emergence in a superficial ideal that applies to housing, food has experienced the same. It is no longer enough to have a tomato that gives us the nutritional benefit of the vegetable, it must also be the right size, shape, colour and texture.

I will discuss the implications/reasons for this from a sociology point of view in another article because right now I will focus on the effect this wastage can have on resource efficiency as well as the need for labour.

In Agnes Verda's documentary, The Gleaners and I, there are scenes of her and others gleaning potatoes from mounds that are several metres in height, width and length. Tonnes of potatoes had been dumped from the local commercial farm because these potatoes were either too big, too small or not in a shape deemed “sellable”.

By not rejecting these potatoes that don't conform to the same beauty ideal there will be a greater supply of potatoes available, and with all things being equal, the price of these potatoes will decrease.

But what to do with the excess potatoes that will not be sold as a result of a greater supply of the vegetable? Won't they go to waste? I guess they will, however, the “market” should realise that the supply is exceeding demand and there is less need to produce that many potatoes. If there isn't the need to produce that many potatoes, there will be more land that could be used for producing another type of fruit or vegetable. Hence, not rejecting the aesthetically imperfect potato allows for a greater efficiency in the allocation of resources.

This same idea would translate to other food industries, because just like an out of shape potato, there are out of shape chocolate bars, biscuits, cheeses, etc, etc.

Now, moving on to labour. If there is less need to produce, does that mean people will be working less? I guess so, but that doesn't mean we aren't going to be able to survive. The farmer who grows the potatoes will receive a better price for each yield because more is being bought and less is being wasted. Another thing, if one of the main reasons for the use of our labour is for survival (to be able to obtain goods and services that allow us to remain alive), then we won't be needing to work as much anyway, because with the greater efficiency that comes from less waste, comes lower prices.

From all of this I am able to conclude that it is possible to have a higher standard of living (in the orthodox economist sense) and work less at the same time, by using products that don't meet a certain aesthetic value.

Now just a quick not on where gleaning may come into this: Gleaning uses goods that would otherwise be wasted. In doing this, the gleaner attempts to use what is already being supplied as well as decreasing the demand for the good, while placing the focus back on using food as a means of survival.

Gleaning: post-consumption vs pre-consumption environmentalism plus a short vegan critique

The current mainstream approach to environmentalism focuses on dealing with waste after it has been created. Gleaning takes a step or two back using a pre-consumption type of environmentalism. Instead of participating in the established conventions of consumption and creating more waste that needs to be dealt with, gleaning uses the products and packaging that is already there.

By recovering and re-using waste, gleaners can minimise (as best they can) the amount of space taken up in landfill and at the same time reduce the need for creating more products. In this way gleaning does address waste management in a post-consumption way but also traces back to the roots of the waste and refuses to create a demand for the use of more resources and production methods.

As lifestyle-based activism, gleaning can be an extension of or detraction from other forms of lifestyle-based activism or even something entirely different. The current wave of pop activism is of recycling, low-energy light globes and water-saving shower heads. Instead of analysing the consequences of changing our patterns of consumption and resource use, we just utilise minor solutions to environmental problems. Gleaning offers something outside of government campaigns and post-consumption environmentalism. At this point, the limits of gleaning as a mass movement appear because of its “outside the system” nature. Would you ever hear a Liberal or Labor government tell people not to buy things? Hypothetically, if they were to promote gleaning what would be the nature of gleaning? People would glean to the point that there would be nothing left to glean and then would have to go back to buying products. However, by that point, views held by society would see a transition to the production of goods through more ecologically sustainable methods than they did before there was a mass consciousness of gleaning as an environmental solution. From an environmentalist based viewpoint, that will be a complete success in minimising waste.

Of other lifestyle-based forms of activism, gleaning confronts veganism and heavily critiques vegan philosophy. A friend and I in a discussion one day came up with the term “post-vegan” to describe a form of lifestyle that incorporates other factors rather than simply not eating or wearing animal products. We came to a similar conclusion that is made by the “freegans” - that although veganism may help to stop the killing and abuse of animals it doesn’t necessarily address other issues that should be considered when deciding what food to eat and materials to wear, etc. Without considering other factors, vegan food is generally made with the same waste and exploitation of resources as non-vegan food. This includes sweatshop labour, the destruction of eco-systems from pollutants or the use of the land and the costs on the environment caused by the transportation of vegan goods. The somewhat freegan manifesto, Why Freegan? (2000) makes the interesting point that “vegan packaging doesn’t take up less room in landfill”. Consumer vegans are still complicit in these forms of exploitation through monetary support, something that gleaners are not.