there's our catastrophe

May 20 2013

Support a Sex Worker and Rape Survivor’s Legal Battle

Support a Sex Worker and Rape Survivor’s Legal Battle - please reblog and spread far and wide!

I’m Ruby - a sex worker of 7 years from Melbourne. I’ve been involved with Vixen as well as organising the inaugural Festival of Sex Work.

About 3 years ago I was raped by a serial ugly mug. Due to his history I decided to report it to the police. The committal hearing happened in 2012 and the trial commences in July and will go for a week and a half. I will be cross examined for 1 - 2 days.

Knowing how difficult it was for me to make it through the committal hearing and to recover afterwards, I have scheduled a month off work. This will allow me time to get through the trial itself and to take care of myself afterwards.

Emergency money that I had set aside was recently eaten up by having to move house in circumstances that were out of my hands. I decided to work very hard after moving house to get the money together. Unfortunately I have been struggling emotionally as the trial approaches (particularly since my rapist’s legal team applied to subpoena my therapist’s notes about me), making it too hard to work as much as I need to.

I do not want to get a loan if I can help it, as this whole process as well as the rape itself has already had a big impact on my life financially - not to mention the cost to my physical and emotional health. I also applied for interim financial assistance from the Victim’s of Crime Tribunal. They denied my application for very whorephobic reasons. By their logic, because I continue to do sex work they do not believe that the assault must have had much of an impact on my life, if at all. If I was sexually assaulted at an office job, no one would question it’s impact on my life if I decided to keep that job afterwards!

I’m usually not very good at asking for help and take great pride in being as self-sufficient, resourceful and independent as possible. But given the trying circumstances, I am calling on all the help that I need right now.

It will take a massive weight off my mind in the lead up to the trial if I know that my expenses will be covered during that period. At this stage I have enough money to cover my rent during that month off. But not for groceries, bills, petrol, medication and those basic day-to-day expenses. My weekly medical bills are high due to complex mental and physical health issues (I suffer from depression and fibromyalgia) - so it’s really important that I can continue to see my psychologist and physiotherapist regularly during this time, as well as my psychiatrist.

To take a month off I will need $3300 to cover these expenses. Any contribution you can make will mean the world to me, and help me in my fight to force someone with a history of violence against sex workers to be accountable for his actions.

If I happen to be lucky enough to exceed my target for this fundraising campaign, all additional donations will go to Melbourne’s Centre Against Sexual Assault - who have been an incredibly supportive organisation to me since the day I decided to report the assault.

Please click here to donate via GoFundMe

May 9 2013

hyperallergic:

Teamsters Shift Course, Frieze Sponsor Deutsche Bank Now a Target

This flyer, prepared by the Teamsters, will be distributed by picketers on Randall’s Island…

View Post

reblogging this for my personal “art is the worst, what is to be done” archives

May 8 2013

Melbourne taxi drivers clash with scabs, security goons, & the police

Following a dispute over working practices – hundreds of taxi drivers are boycotting Melbourne airport and have blockaded roads that lead in and out of the complex.

Drivers believe that the airport authorities are exploiting underpaid drivers by its decision to stop short-fare queues. A spokesperson for the drivers said that “We work for two hours and get an $8 fare, it’s not fair. They treat us like slaves, like dogs”.

Several meetings have been organised over the last few days to encourage more drivers to participate in the dispute.
Around 300 drivers occupied the pick-up/drop-off terminal, distributing literature to drivers still working, and to airport customers. Airport bosses have drafted in a large number of thugs from a private security firm to try and intimidate the driver’s and to enable the scab cabs to continue working.
Following brief scuffles between the drivers, scabs, and security goons – airport bosses called the police – who sent the heavily armed ‘incident response team’. Further clashes ensued as the police tried to remove drivers from the road and entrances. Further protests and blockades are being planned for the coming days.

May 1 2013

this cool thing is a big patch by missvoltarine and you can buy it on her etsy for only $12 (listing)

p sure I’m getting this for my mum for mother’s day (may 12)

the mother’s day article on wikipedia is really interesting, in some countries the history of mother’s day is really cool and it’s annoying how it’s been co-opted by shitty companies (USA), in some countries the history of mother’s day is fucked up eugenicist bullshit encouraging a higher Aryan birthrate so they’ve quietly changed the date (germany)

The Meaning of May Day | Green Left Weekly

class-struggle-anarchism:

amodernmanifesto:

That first May Day expressed a conception of working-class struggle that intertwined three cardinal ideas.

First, that the struggle to free labour from capitalist exploitation can only be achieved through workers’ own, organised, self-activity.

Secondly, that for this organised self-activity to even begin to free labour from capitalist exploitation it must take the form of a movement that champions the interests of labour as a whole, as a class, against the interests of the capitalist class. That is, it must be a political movement, a movement against the political policies and the political power of the capitalists, against the governments and laws that protect the capitalist private-profit system.

And, thirdly, that the struggle to free labour from capitalist exploitation is not a national, but a social problem, embracing all countries that are dominated by the capitalist private-profit system, a system that is by its very nature an international system, and, therefore requires solidarity between the workers of all nationalities.

Oh fuck right off

An article on the meaning of May Day with absolutely no mention of Haymarket or the martyrs whatsoever. It mentions the strike, but not the riot - it mentions the decision to make may 1st international worker’s day at the second international, but not the fact that this day was chosen specifically to commemorate the martyrs.

It’s not like this is obscure or contested knowledge. Let’s go all the way to Wikipedia and search for “International Worker’s Day”

first sentence under the heading “History”:

International Workers’ Day is the commemoration of the 1886 Haymarket affair in Chicago.

Not so difficult. This isn’t an honest mistake, it’s a deliberate and shameful attempt to write anarchists out of working class history.

Trots - if you’re ever wondering why anarchists don’t like your newspapers - It’s this shit.

Apr 22 2013

Unions to lobby for more public housing

A coalition of powerful building unions will launch a campaign urging the Napthine government to build more public housing to reduce waiting lists and create jobs.

The group, which includes the CFMEU and ETU, is preparing a submission for Premier Denis Napthine that outlines unused government-owned sites in inner-city Melbourne that could be transformed into public housing.

please be for real

Apr 8 2013

ryrysparkleby:

corkypoindexter:

Hey We are two Sex workers wanting to create a video for and by sex workers to show to our family when we are coming out to help family members understand our lives as sex workers.
If you are a sex worker and want to submit some video footage with maybe one or two points that you would like your family and other families of sex workers to understand about your life and/or work as a sex worker please contact us at whorefamily@gmail.com. Feel free to ask any questions or send footage directly (any resolution is okay)

Please submit by End of April 2013!
xx Ryan and Hanako (Corkypoindexter)

(via mossflowers)

Mar 26 2013

rubyrevolting replied to your post: I love your blog, but what’s with all the journalist hate? As a journalist myself, I find it vaguely hurtful.

it is so lol that writers go wahhhh wahhh at any criticism, have got into heated debates because i refuse to engage with the dicks always emailing me wanting me to do their work for free.

pro writers are vampires

Mar 25 2013

Solidarity Online » Facts tell the real story: 457 workers are not taking jobs

ahipstory:

‘Aussie jobs’ are not being taken by 457 visa holders, no matter what Adam Bandt claims.

this is an article full of numbers, not just 457 but a lot of other numbers

the numbers are quite interesting

Mar 15 2013

thesavagesalad:

shespeaksoflove:

I also don’t trust white people in this country because of the Pacific Islander slave trade that was going on in Australia from 1842-1904, which til this day is either ignored or in describing it, words like recruited, encouraged and employed are used. When in reality South Sea Islanders were coerced, kidnapped, forced, and sold. Slavery by any other name, is still slavery.

And the only reason this stopped is because of the ‘white Australia’ policy that was brought into place to try and keep Australia for white people. When thousands of the men and women who were stolen from their homes, were returned, some being returned to the wrong Island (because brown and black people are all the same to white people) and others dying on the journey home.

Also, to add on to this is that during the period of labour that was forced onto Pacific Islanders, many of those people did settle down and have families with Indigenous communities in the places that they were made to work.
They had already built new lives for themselves, with the means that were given to them- they had families and new identities, so when the white supremacist policy took place, not only were these people displaced AGAIN but they were FORCED to leave their families AGAIN there for harming their own community but also the Indigenous communities in those areas.

Australian history is a load of fuckery and so is the federation that this nation is founded upon and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise

(via theirriandjhiquishow-deactivate)