The Universal Caregiver Society – by Anne Manne

On the 21 January 2029, the new President of the United States of America, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, gave her inauguration address.  The landslide victory of Ocasio- Cortez as President, following her brilliant performance as Secretary of State for Energy under former President Elizabeth Warren, was largely attributable to a grassroots mass movement, an alliance between Justice for Carers, Black Lives Matter and the Green New Deal activists that had swept not just the U.S. but the world.

“I declare America to be what feminist Nancy Fraser has called a universal caregiver state. We are a proud nation of caregivers. Care work is essential work. All of us during our lives at different times will be either caregivers, or care recipients, in childhood, illness, old age and if we have a disability or mental illness. Care work not only helps us to flourish, care is essential to the life of every human being, every animal, and to our shared planet. Unless we care enough to take radical environmental action now, climate change will destroy our world. There is no planet B.”

Ocasio-Cortez declared that Capitalism has created a crisis of care, both for people who need it, and for caregivers providing it. Capitalism has been free-riding on female care work for too long. In announcing immediate raises in carer wages to parity with male dominated professions, Ocasio-Cortez said; “Care work is low carbon work. A care job is a green job. Those who give care have for too long been underpaid, marginalised politically, and frankly exploited. Care has all too often been done by poorly paid workers, by for-profit companies delivering poor quality care, staffed primarily by minorities along gender, racial and class lines. All those who perform unpaid care work in the recent past have paid a savage Care Penalty, facing impoverishment and even homelessness in old age. This is no way to treat those who keep our lifeworld going, nourish it, nurture and care for us when we need it.”

Ocasio- Cortex paused, then said; “At the centre of the universal caregiver state, is care for the planet, and I am proud to announce our signing – in the nick of time- the International Accord on the Green New Deal, joining other nations like the UK, the European Union and Australia, but also China and India.” She then announced to wild cheers from the crowd, “like those nations we are close to recording zero emissions in January 1st of this year, 2029, for the United States.”

How did we get here, in 2029, to this revolutionary moment? Looking back the transformative moment was the terrifying pandemic of 2020. It acted, as the writer Arundhati Roy put it, as “a portal, a gateway between one world and the next. We can choose to walk through it, dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred, our avarice, our data banks and dead ideas…Or we can walk through lightly, with little luggage, ready to imagine another world. And ready to fight for it.”

It started, like all revolutionary movements, small and local. In the darkness of a London evening, in March 2020 at 8pm, the sound of clapping and cheering rang out. As the sound swelled and rose in the cold air, it warmed all who heard it. It was the Clap for Carers – the nurses, doctors, home carers and carers in nursing homes, and other emergency workers who were providing essential care and saving lives while risking their own.

The value of care was also at the centre of the New York Caring Majority, an alliance which emerged as, in the U.S., the brutally unequal consequences of the pandemic became clear; disproportionately killing the poor, the homeless, the black and Hispanic populations. It also impacted much more on anyone involved in low paid but essential care work, compared to wealthy white elites, the knowledge workers who were able to isolate themselves and work from home. The N. Y. Caring Majority fought “to create a world in which all of us have the care and support we need to lead full healthy lives. In our vision, the work of providing care will be a respected and recognised contribution… a dignified and well-paid job within a fast-growing and flourishing sector of a sustainable, humane economy.”

In Australia, too, progressives responded to that heartfelt moment of recognition and solidarity in the face of a terrifying pandemic by starting the Assembly for the Future, a virtual gathering of citizens to begin the crucial work Roy had exhorted us to do – stepping through that portal and imagining and fighting for a different, more just world. At its centre was care and solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement in fighting for social and economic justice for First Nations people, an end to deaths in custody, and the enactment of long overdue Treaties with First Nations people, confirming Indigenous sovereignty, land rights and custodianship.

The Green New Deal in Australia proposed by the Assembly for the Future, meant the fast tracking of 100 % renewable energy targets for every suburb, business, council area, industry, and house. While at first the Coalition tried to smuggle in a “Gas Led Recovery” via stacking the Covid Commission with their mates from fossil fuel companies, social activism quickly exposed this shoddy move. Once the shady covert use of the Commission was made visible, a majority of shareholders voted against their company’s boards if they refused to comply with the Paris agreement. The rapid swing to renewable energy for all households, councils, businesses, and the rebooting of a home-grown manufacturing industry provided brilliant job creation schemes in communities desperate for employment as so many businesses collapsed in the pandemic.

The Assembly for the Future grew and grew. From it emerged the Care and Justice Party which held the balance of power in the Senate from 2022. That helped push through a bold new program of social change. The graffiti which went viral caught the moment; “There can be no return to normal because normal was the problem in the first place.”

The pandemic acted as a shape shifter; the new mood was a radical break with what had gone before.

One of the seismic shifts was in how we thought about work. It was about stepping through that portal and creating a new social imaginary around care. In reality, much of the transformative work changing what we considered valuable work and how we should reward it, was already done by the pandemic. The phrase ‘essential worker’ was given a whole new meaning. It did not mean one of the wolves of Wall Street and the finance industry, nor the narcissistic company CEOs who drove down worker’s wages while awarding themselves huge multimillion-dollar salaries.

The essential workers were the nurses, emergency workers, doctors, pharmacists, and specialists in infectious diseases who battled on the front line of the War against Covid. Everyone knew their lives depended on these people. It was more, however, than the medical personnel. It was the cleaners keeping the hospitals virus free, the people supplying food to patients and staff, the people keeping grocery, vegetable, and food stores open, the food banks and charities, the delivery drivers, all those continuing to provide needed goods and services were essential. It was the disability, child, and elder care workers, as well as the millions of parents and family who provided unpaid care work to children as childcare and schools closed, while working from home.  People knew as never before that it was the low paid or unpaid, the low status and largely invisible workforce of the shadow care economy which kept the visible economy afloat.

As all our lives were shown in such stark ways to depend upon all these people, a new sensibility was born. It was a moment of moral quickening, a new understanding of the absolute centrality to all our lives of care.  The pandemic of 2020 changed everything. It shook up long held assumptions about women and men and leadership. The brute fact was nations led by women did so much better. Under their leadership, nations dramatically lowered the infection and death rate. Until this moment, power and the capacity to lead was considered “natural” to men, a male entitlement even, while women leaders, simply by being gendered female, were seen as suspect. Yet it was nations led by women, with exemplars like Jacinta Ardern in New Zealand, Angela Merkel in Germany, Tsai Ing-wen in Taiwan, which overwhelmingly did better in beating Covid, with vastly fewer infections and lower death rates. “Want to Stay Alive? Elect a woman!” became a meme that strengthened over the decade.

Meanwhile those countries led by the macho, toxic masculinity exemplars like Donald Trump, Jair Bolsonaro, Boris Johnston and Vladimir Putin faced catastrophic disasters. Hundreds of thousands died. Trump was dubbed The Death King, presiding over the worst death rates in the world. Few families were untouched.  As the corpses mounted, he kept on admiring himself, declaring how great he was, declaring “victory” over Covid as record infections smashed previous highs every day. “How is my popularity rating today?” was the only question he would ask, his staffers later revealed. He had lost all interest in the virus, declaring in July 2020 that it would just magically “disappear.” One by one, Republicans, from Secretaries of State to former staffers, turned on him. Leon Panetta, former Defence Secretary and CIA Director expressed his outrage in mid 2020, “This president has essentially gone “AWOL” from the job of leadership that he should be providing a country in trouble.” Trump’s idle tweets that people ingest bleach as a Covid cure, finished him. In the November 2020 election, Trump lost in a devastating landslide. Even Fox News did not at first back his campaign to declare the election loss “rigged,” until Rupert Murdoch intervened. Elizabeth Warren’s success in winning the US election of 2024 was representative of the sea change in attitudes towards female leaders. The macho leader was utterly on the nose with the public by now.

The pandemic smashed neo liberalism too. When the pandemic hit, Australia and the Anglosphere were at the tail end of this morally bankrupt and unjust ideology. Neo liberalism had worked handsomely for the big end of town. Inequality had risen exponentially delivering an ever-larger slice of the pie to the richest citizens. Widespread tax evasion meant one third of corporations in Australia paid no tax at all, and billions of missing funds. Meanwhile wages stagnated for most folk, while soaring house prices in many countries made home ownership unaffordable for the young and made household debt rise to an all-time high for the rest, despite two parents working long hours in most families. Despite picking winners – like fossil fuel companies with billion-dollar taxpayer subsidies – the ideology that said the free market would fix everything, collapsed in the face of the pandemic. It was no longer possible to sneer at government as the source of all our woes, but instead people rightly looked to their elected representatives to provide the stimulus and safety net to save the economy and their lives.

The economic effects of the pandemic were, at first, highly unequal, impacting worst on vulnerable communities. However, as unemployment quickly reached and surpassed the level of the Great Depression of the 1930s, the job losses were so extensive and so many people were affected that a sense of solidarity emerged. The phrase “We are in this together” was often heard as people understood that the only way they could survive was by government stimulus and spending. Billions of dollars of much needed revenue were raised by cracking down on corporate tax evasion. The harsh and punitive neo -liberal regime of austerity, fetishizing government surpluses, inflicting budget cuts on the poor while giving tax cuts to the rich, refusing to properly fund core institutions of democracy like education, health and mental health, evaporated as the pandemic dragged on without a vaccine. The shaming and stigmatising of anyone receiving government benefits disappeared too, when so many citizens ended up depending on the solidarity of taxpayers to survive, through the extension and universal application of the job seeker and job keeper wage subsidy.

It was in the second year of the pandemic when things really shifted towards the necessity for a Universal Basic Income. By early 2021, 9 months before the vaccine roll out in October, it was recognised in the UK, Australia, New Zealand and most of the EU, that some form of Universal Basic Income was the only way their economies could survive. The world-wide depression was so devastating that the Democrat dominated Congress and Joe Biden, elected as U.S. President in November 2020, followed New Zealand, Australia and most of the EU and UK in bringing in a UBI.  The world economy would have collapsed without the introduction of the UBI, and millions would have faced starvation.

The UBI brought a radical shift from self-respect and dignity being dependent on having paid work, to a more inclusive model based on citizens engaging in socially valuable labour. It might be unpaid love’s labour, caring for an elderly parent or small children without falling into abject poverty. It might be joining the increasing numbers of well-paid care workers looking after young children, elders and assisting people with a disability, in one of the many job creation and stimulus packages for one of the fastest growing sectors of the economy. It might be volunteering your time to working on land care projects or local solar neighbourhood grids or developing community vegetable gardens providing fresh produce to those locked down at home. It might be volunteers visiting and assisting those with a disability. It could be working in the creative industries which for so long had bought a literal, grisly truth to the romanticised idea of the artist starving in the garret. Many people, of course, were able to continue in professions just as before, although far more worked from home.  But the whole idea of work had to radically change and did. Once everyone had access to the UBI, resentment of welfare recipients disappeared, and the exonerating adjective “paid” stuck in front of the word work slipped out of our vocabulary. Everybody worked, everybody contributed in one way or another, and no longer was one gender considered worth more than another because they were ‘the breadwinners.’ The epidemics of anxiety and depression among young people caused by fear and uncertainty during the pandemic, improved dramatically when they were guaranteed a basic income and gained respect for the contributions they made to their community.

Although the pandemic was a portal, we could not have stepped through and made it a transformative moment without a tough political struggle.

The decisive factor in ushering in the new caregiver state, was the General Caregiver and School Strike of 2027. Alongside the school students striking on climate change, for the sake of planet earth, hundreds of thousands of care workers joined in a series of rolling strikes around the world, uniting in the common cause of care. Care for each other, care for our common life world, planet earth.

The effect was pandemonium. This revealed something that came as a shock, even after the pandemic, to the privileged who always had their care work done for them. They were shocked to discover just how much the visible economy depended upon the vital shadow care economy. It was the General Strike of Caregivers in 2027 that ushered in a new regime, a change from the now discredited Universal Breadwinner state to the Universal Caregiver state.

Marilyn Waring, the founder of feminist economics, was a key player in the reorganisation of the new economy, advising governments all over the world.  Her hugely influential book Counting for Nothing, What men value and what women are worth showed that excluding unpaid work and the cost of inaction on climate change from calculations of Gross Domestic Product was disastrous. “What we don’t count, we don’t value,” she said. Waring was awarded the Nobel prize for economics in 2026 – the first time a feminist economist had ever been recognised in this way.  And nations began for the very first time to include the value of all unpaid care work and the cost of climate change and environmental degradation into their calculations of Gross National Product.

A symbol of the new Universal Caregiver society was the March for Care every year. The new mantra was the four R’s of the universal caregiver regime, Recognize, Respect, Redistribute and Remunerate. Recognise the care work which nurtures us all, by both paid and unpaid carers. Respect that vital, life-sustaining work. Redistribute the unjust and highly gendered nature of care work between men and women. Renumerate justly those engaged in care work.

A whole new meaning was given to “You have to have a go to get a go.” All citizens should do their fair share of care work. Job interviews now required not just achievements listed on a Curriculum Vitae, but evidence that you had in some way taken responsibility for care. This dismantled the idea that the privileged can just buy their way out of having to contribute to the well-being of those family members who needed care. (Nursing home residents got a whole lot more visits when it was designated as emotional abuse not to visit old people in homes.)  Care was a shared responsibility, not just an expectation of one gender.

The introduction of the Four-Day Week helped parents and carers combine employment and care, and productivity went up. Home-based work increased permanently as the universality of the Office as a work site retreated. Flexibility in working and paid leave around peak caregiving periods like the birth of a child, family illness or elder care, was now a matter of labour market regulation. With these reforms, the numbers of women in the paid workforce and in leadership roles rose to parity with men.

Green Parties surged in the polls and in France did so well that in 2020 President Emmanuel Macron held a referendum on whether to introduce the crime of “Ecocide” into the French legal system. The yes vote won. Other nations, including the US, the UK, New Zealand and Australia, soon followed suit in enacting legislation against the Crime of Ecocide. This had a salutary effect on companies and political parties. Corporations were held to account for their emissions and suffered heavy penalties if they defied the new regulations. Australia ceased digging up coal and exporting it. Canada abandoned the tar sands. Campaigns to divest from fossil fuel companies were enormously successful, finally removing their social license to operate. The threat of being charged with Ecocide meant it was too risky for political parties to accept donations from fossil fuel companies. These companies which were now regarded in the same light as tobacco companies and asbestos miners. The Green New Deal created many jobs in huge solar and wind farms, including in former coal mining areas. Australia with its unparalleled resources of space, sun and wind, became as the economist Ross Garnaut had advocated back in 2020, a renewable energy superpower of the post-carbon world.

At the heart of the Universal Caregiver state was a new relationship between First Nations people and settlers, enacting far-reaching Treaties with meaningful reparations which recognised and respected Indigenous sovereignty. As the date and name of Australia Day changed, statues of old white male racists and slave owners were torn down. New monuments were erected paying tribute to hitherto invisible but important contributors to our common world – Indigenous leaders, women, health and community workers, nurses and carers, parents, and volunteers. Refugees were now welcomed and granted asylum, permanent residency and then citizenship.

Looking back from 2029, the transformation since 2020, has been immense. It has not been without pain, political struggle, and conflict. And the fight is not yet over. But what is clear is that enough people at the time of the pandemic and after, made a choice. They stepped through that portal, as Roy called it, and began not just imagining, but fighting for and creating a better world based on the values of care and justice.

The New Sun Times

July 23, 2029

Editorial

The Great Awakening

By Tim Baker

Good Evening, and here is the news.

We lead this bulletin, as we have every day since the Great Awakening five years ago today, with the astonishing news that ten billion humans co-existed harmoniously today without harming themselves, each other and the biosphere they depend on for life. This number, at which the human population has stabilised, has also proven the healthy carrying capacity of the planet in this new era, in which all are able to be fed, housed, educated and allowed to flourish with dignity and humanity.

(News Unlimited, 7pm Good News, July 17^th 2029)

 

It is hard to believe that just over five years ago, the news consisted of gathering the most awful things and events that had happened anywhere in the world that day and broadcasting them to as many people as possible, as if to convince ourselves of the inherent misery of the human condition. Today we celebrate the global rejection of this destructive folly and the remarkable elevation to a higher collective consciousness which occurred with apparent spontaneity around the world five years ago.

While this Great Awakening may have appeared spontaneous, it had its roots in the Pandemic of 2020. Forced into lockdown, stripped of the false identity and prestige of jobs, income, material trinkets and diversion, compelled to take an inner journey during forced isolation time and again, throughout the second and third waves of 2020 and 2021, it was as if humanity was being forced to repeat its lessons until it had finally learned them.

Today, as we approach a decade since the beginning of this transformative process, and five years since the Great Awakening, we celebrate some of the milestones along this evolutionary ascent.

One of the unlikely heroes of the movement was former model and widow of media mogul Rupert Murdoch, Jerry Hall, who inherited his media empire upon his mysterious death in a hot tub on their private super yacht moored in the Caribbean. While many had puzzled at their unlikely pairing, Ms Hall appeared to adapt to widowhood as if her whole life had been leading to this point, transforming his global media empire from a toxic swamp of vested interests and the repeated hi-jacking of democracy, to an endless wellspring of uplifting inspiration and a daily catalogue of the world’s most positive developments. Some speculated at the time that Ms Hall had been playing “the long game” all the time, to use her inheritance for good rather than the evil it had become widely despised for.

Changing the title of the corporation her late husband founded to News Unlimited, Ms Hall led a revolution in what became known as the “good news media” and “positive journalism”, which itself took its inspiration from the Reasons To Be Cheerful website founded by former Talking Heads front-man, David Byrne. Through its various media channels, News Unlimited spread a daily diet of the most exciting and inspiring developments from around the world that heralded the dawning of a new era. Advances in renewable energy technology, insights into the traditional wisdom of First Nations people from around the world, environmental and social justice initiatives, every victory by human rights activists, every forest saved, every humanitarian crisis averted or alleviated by swift collective action, great art works created, constant updates on a new child-friendly educational revolution that was sweeping the planet. The combined effect of this avalanche of good news was nothing short of a radical shift in humanity’s self-perception, its astounding potential for good and the awesome power of acting with a united vision of the common good.

The global media market, both consumers and advertisers, soon developed an unquenchable thirst for this positivity and rapidly awakened to the fact that they had been poisoning themselves, and the democratic process, with the daily intake of misery and propaganda formerly peddled by Murdoch’s media empire. Without News Limited’s corrupting influence, a truly representative democracy flourished in his once-key markets of the US, UK and Australia, ushering in a wave of new politicians able to truly enact the will of the people for the greater good. First Nations leaders naturally arose to the fore in this untainted environment, espousing traditional wisdom that resonated deeply with an electorate wearied by the harrowing cycles of pandemic lockdowns and the unsustainable illusion of an economic model unfit for purpose.  The veil was drawn back, revealing a rancid system serving the interests of a few, propped up by corrupt Government sleights-of-hand and the revolving door of corporate lobbyists and government advisers playing a cynical game of musical chairs at the expense of the people and the planet.

The other key development from the Pandemic Period was the broad adoption of a Universal Basic Income, even by reluctant conservative governments, to prevent economic collapse, which soon proved so popular and practical that it became impossible to repeal post-Pandemic. Rather than producing populations of bludgers as the rabid right-wing commentariat warned and blustered against with increasing desperation, the UBI inspired a great blossoming of the arts, local organic food production, a sense of community, rapid improvements in public health and housing, advances in technology. Freed of the constricting yoke of the economic imperative, people naturally applied their energies to their passions, interests and fields of excellence. People had not one vocation but many in parallel or in succession, shifting from the arts to farming to care and social work as their moods and interests and expertise and society’s needs directed them. The cancelling of foreign debt allowed so-called developing countries to make rapid advances in all quality-of- life indices.

The other key outcome of the pandemic was a widespread embrace of meditation. Trapped in their homes for extended periods, tapping into online resources for support, many discovered the nourishing effects of going within, finding stillness and cultivating inner peace even as their outer worlds morphed often beyond recognition. Even after restrictions were lifted, many found meditation a key coping strategy for the uncertainties of their new reality. Soon, it was being taught in schools and workplaces, regarded as essential for human health as diet and exercise. In fact, a new catchcry emerged in the post-Pandemic world, celebrating a new holistic paradigm of selfcare: “I just need to take my M.E.D.S. Meditation, Exercise, Diet, Sleep.” The savings and relief on the public purse and health care system freed up more resources for preventative and educational health strategies around the world.

Technological solutions to the world’s most pressing environmental problems flourished as a new cooperative spirit usurped the old competitive model of free market capitalism. Coal fired power stations toppled like dominos, along with the rapacious corporations which no longer had a place in this re-aligned world, their ruthless profit motives abruptly exposed as sociopathic and inhumane.

The central role of the Arts in promoting human flourishing across all societies was one of the defining features of this post-Pandemic era. Instead of pop culture super stars amassing vast fortunes while most arts workers struggled on the poverty line, artistic instincts were allowed to shine – flowing, meandering, spreading throughout society like water over floodplains, depositing a nourishing silt that enriched the lives of all community members. Artistic expression became as natural and universal as cheering on sporting teams had once been. House concerts, street parties, community festivals and seasonal celebrations became common place as natural markers of special occasions in our human and natural calendars.

One of the most sweeping transformations occurred in the global food system, where the onus of regulation and accreditation and compliance was shifted from organic to non-organic foods. Farmers who used chemical fertilisers and pesticides and other damaging and unsustainable practices had to meticulously document every unhealthy feature of their production and build them into their costs. All food was organic unless otherwise labelled, and this one simple shift made chemical-based monocultures unviable and the switch to organic farming ushered in a stunning improvement in human health, more productive and fulfilling vocations and a connection to the natural environment and seasonal cycles that soon permeated every aspect of society. Food and livestock were no longer transported vast distances for consumption on the other side of the world. People awaited the arrival of tomato, mango or watermelon seasons with relish and celebrated with local festivals and gatherings. Street and public plantings were largely food producing so that no one went hungry. A new embrace of native foods allowed food production in once unviable areas, providing meaningful employment and restoring eco-systems.

Along with all these sweeping changes, crime plummeted, prisons stood empty and some were converted to public housing, community colleges or artists’ studios. With the increased vigour and health that soon infected the population, walking and cycling flourished, roads grew quiet, air pollution became a thing of the past, marvelled at by a younger generation aghast at the crude and clumsy excesses of their forebears. The re-direction of unneeded military expenditure was ploughed into universal health care, education, housing and the arts.

In a society so radically transformed in so short a time, you might expect the populace to be disoriented, beset with anxieties over the radical pace of change, and their unfamiliar new reality, even if it appeared more humane. Interestingly, it was the elderly and the young who adapted most rapidly to the Great Awakening, an older generation recognising traces of their past in the unadulterated food and neighbourly connections, the young intuitively understanding that this was humanity’s destiny all along. Certainly, there was resistance and upheaval in some quarters, but it was relatively short-lived and ultimately futile as a new wave of people power and collective action swept the planet.

The Localisation Movement, first espoused by Helena Norberg-Hodge in the early 2000s, found its full voice and expression in this new era, what was once seen as old hippy idealism suddenly appeared perfectly practical. Indeed, the hippy movement of the 1960s was widely celebrated for laying the foundations for many of these sweeping changes, even while infused with a new progressive and technological sophistication. Visionary and writer Charles Eisenstein’s “The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know is Possible,” was stunningly made manifest in a society that had a place for all and regarded all life as worthy of dignity and respect.

It’s difficult to fathom that the world we enjoy today would have been seen as a fanciful daydream just a decade ago and that humanity suffered for so long under the oppressive dictates of spurious, economic snake oil salespeople and a hopelessly compromised system of exploitation and environmental destruction.

Today, we give thanks for the brave pioneers of this global movement who strived valiantly for decades, sometimes against overwhelming odds. The monuments to these bold activists and innovators are not bronze statues but arts and community centres, health and educational facilities, bike tracks and parks and public housing for all to enjoy. We are still coming to grips with the complex systems of shared responsibilities and support that govern this new world, but for this we have First Nations societies to thank for their wisdom and leadership, the move away from hierarchical structures and the embrace of flat, circular systems of mutual obligation. The catchcry of government public health campaigns during the Pandemic of 2020, that we are all in this together, has finally come true.

Future generated by Jodi, Emma, Ira, Jane, Susan, Rockie and Tim.

Catalogue notes:

Message retrieved from the crashed servers of the Rete Libera Local 433 by archivists, as part of the Federal upgrade. Timestamp 15:29 23-07-2029 Kaurna -34.90 138.85 Attribution lost.

To: ReteLibera//@Local433

Re: Notes on this month’s agenda

From: Jen Mills

Hi all,

Just wanted to share some thoughts on the draft agenda that was sent around ahead of the next meeting of the Spring Festival Committee, aka Local433 Governance Team Dinner/Workshare/Emergency Collective, or whatever we’re calling it now (see note below)

Welcome Meal

If anyone has surplus food for this please bring it, especially produce. The water recycling project is really proving its worth this year and I know we all appreciate the extra veggies etc even more after such a severe hurricane season, but I just wanted to remind everyone that the inundation hit the coast really hard this week and so whatever is left over will be redistributed by the FoodShare Collective (we need more volunteers, pls contact FSC after the meeting esp if you have WORKING transport)

Related: I still have loads of Pink Lady apples in the shed if anyone wants some.

Education Group

Look forward to hearing about the Festival organising! It’s great to see the Slow Learning format that’s been working so well at the Play Station being deployed in service of such a mammoth task. Can we have ONE of each, Elders, Youth, and Teacher-Facilitator reps this time so there’s room for all our other topics?

Work

I noticed on the Education Group chat that the students are again agitating for a 20-hour school week to give them time to pursue their festival organising. I get the sense that this will be wholeheartedly supported by staff, who are already putting together a proposal in support of the 20 hour week at the next Labour Transformation branch meeting. I just wanted to flag it as something we might want to discuss ahead of that. Personally I am in favour of it too.

I can hardly believe that it’s only three years since the 30-hour week was declared standard. Since the Redistribution it feels like that was such a humble ask. The kids don’t really remember how it was for us in the hamster wheel days but I do and I’m still amazed by how much we have all been able to slow down since then. OTOH I’m starting to feel that the hours are blurring more and more between work and non-work tasks, and so while I’m keen to see the 20-hour week adopted I’m also mindful of burnout… painfully aware I am writing from the Recovery suite at the Health Centre! Anyway, looking forward to the deeper discussions we’ll be having here and in our branch in the lead-up to the Value of Work conference next year.

Housing

We didn’t get through the list of urgent housing priorities last meeting, a few key people left the dinner early to go and fix a leaking roof and have another go at reactivating the wind turbines we lost in February (I heard the crack team of trainees from Energy have fixed it now, thanks!) There is always a lot more to get through than we have time for in the meeting so maybe this should be a separate meeting. Basically I think Housing Group needs more autonomy from main committee now that we have more resources to go around.

Health

Thanks for all your messages of support, they really help. I am doing great now, but while I have been in here I have noticed that our lovely staff at the Health Centre seem a bit worn out. I asked around and this was backed up by several of the nurses. IMO we need to allocate some more people, resources and time off for them. 20hr week pilot? Also thinking Build Group could prioritise finishing the pool 😉

Memorial Group

This is ongoing. BUT we had a message from Reparation Archives International (!!) who are wanting to come and record some of our planning for the ceremony, ahead of this year’s digital delegation to Memorial Earth which will be hosted by Pasifika Diaspora. A draft of the virtual space will be available at the hall from tomorrow so please go and immerse yourself in the world they have created for this, it’s part of an ongoing arts project/study tour run by RAI so it’s really exciting that it’s being shared here! They are keen to hear more from us, especially as Turtle Islanders are researching a variety of Treaty/T&RC models for their upcoming negotiations.

Related: Don’t forget we are having a History and the Imaginary discussion at the Play Station on Wednesday, I will try to be there at least via Retelink.

The upcoming discussions have been posted on the noticeboard in the kitchen. I will try to resend the schedule when the Rete is back up at our place (B thinks it could be thirsty kangaroos digging up the cables again?)

Other matters

New name of committee – a few of us talked last week about inviting the children to come up with a better name, so we should probably discuss this again if we have time???

Sorry this message is so long! The Health Centre’s new Rete connection is heaps better than mine. Looking forward to getting out of here once the leg has mended and hopefully coming to the meeting in person, if so will bring that apple cake you all liked from last time.

—

#livinghistory #organising #deliberativedemocracy #localnetwork #local433 #reparations #redistribution #memorial #retelibera #prefederation

Future generated by Daz, Emily, Kirsten, Martin, Melanie, Warwick

Selected Artefacts from En-Neighbour-ling Exhibition, The Museum of Enabling, August-November 2029

Compiled by Amber Hammill

Transcript of TextTalk (live text relay) – Borough Open Door July 2029

stored at lnw://opendoor.myborough

Hello and welcome to our third Open Door for 2029. Is everyone capturing me ok? Yes? No? Yes? Yes? Ok. Great.

I’m Amber, I’m a member of the Open Door Collective this year and I’ll be hosting the session this morning on behalf of the Collective. We’re delighted to be together with you all. I know we’re all joining across a few different languages today using SimTran and TextTalk, so however you’re listening in, on behalf of the whole borough: bienvenidos; y?koso; nau mai, haere mai.

The whole borough so looks forward to welcoming residents to our reclaimed homes. I know it seems like a long time since the rent strike and the landlord eviction, but we had so much work to do to turn these dwellings from commodities into homes. Thanks to everyone in this and the other boroughs for their vision and labour in bringing these homes to life. As you will find them now, they are clean, warm and dry. They are connected to our local grid which they draw from and contribute to. They’re efficient, they’re re-greened and they are yours for as long as you need and care for them. Welcome home.

[applause]

What we’re going to focus on this morning is each other. It’s great to see you’ve all connected with your en-Neighbour-ler – I think all of you managed to meet up yesterday? That doesn’t always work quite so smoothly, so that’s a great start. Of course, the course of our Open Door sessions we’ll get a chance to look at all our co-mutiny tools – the time bank, the forum, the knowledge works, production spaces and the things and stuff library, and of course the lnw – the local neighbourhood web. But arriving here, in this place, today, gives us a unique moment of connection which we can share and cherish, a network we can hold tightly in this moment, even knowing that it can or might or must, over time, become part of the shimmering periphery of our lives in the borough.

You’ve all come from different places and will, no doubt, have your own stories of the work – the replanting and energy transformation – and of the Struggle and the Healing. We’d love to hear about those – as much or as little as you want to share. Sharing and listening is central to our living democracy and evolution as a species. The borough is, and always will be, a work in progress. It is what we make it. I know some of you have family and friends here already who are planning to join us later this morning and get out with us for a bit of an orientation walk and you can see what we’ve made of it so far.

So, in this spirit of connection and place-making, I’ll ask you and your en-Neighbour-ler to say hi around the table, meet one other again or for the first time, and make yourselves at home. We’ve got until half past, so loads of time. If you have any tech trouble, just shout, but it looks like things are working ok for now?

Ok. I’m going to get a cuppa from up the back there and come say hello! en-Neighbour-lers, do you magic!

[transmission transfers from speaker]

Future generated by Samira, Scotia, Ying, Lisa, Brendan, Caddie, Kuldeep, Sophie and Amber.

Masks on Monday image created by Samuel Rodriguez, titled Physical Distancing.

Harken Recruitment Channel

Broadcast #1, Wet Season, 2029

 By Pippa Bailey

This dispatch is written to be read. Aloud. Of course, no one will know if you don’t…. It’s that leap of faith, of giving something voice, that propels ideas from the imagination into the world. Please, take that leap. It’s the first step. Then, you will hear the music.

Welcome to Harken Recruitment Channel (Harken RC), a song stream for cultural citizenry, time reflections and song-line adventures. Listen to the struggles. Hear the land sing here.

Harken RC is the result of a chance meeting in another era. Some of us were in state-imposed lockdown and others were warily navigating the different messages of the 2020 Pandemic: ‘stay inside, ‘business as usual’, ‘go out’, ‘go home’, ‘go away’. It was a baffling time.

We had all brought an object from the past that day, to keep us connected to the temporal world while we navigated our meeting via zoom. Remember that old tech? Back then we were still so unpractised at questioning the machinery that was controlling us.

Jane brought the basket that she was weaving, following instructions by Indigenous Elders from the Western Desert. Those skills have come in handy. We sensed then the extreme need for ancient weaving. It has enabled Arts and Science to become less polarised. The silos and cruel divisions that had torn apart the fabric of our culture are now blending back together into intricate patterns, in some places so tightly entwined that you cannot see the stakes from the strands.

Samantha came from Dja Dja Wurrung lands with an empty glass that had been full of water and would be filled again and again as the hottest summers we could never have imagined burnt suffering onto our lands and people. The heat has killed so much.

Pippa had a toy koala covered in patchy kangaroo fur, worn with love, that had never left Wangal lands in the Eora Nation. Koalas were facing extinction after the 2019 summer of fires destroyed so much habitat. They are still on the endangered list.

Little did we know there were so many hidden connections in that first meeting, shyly starting to reveal themselves.

Suse had a Tell Me Why cap from the Archie Roach Foundation that she still wears to shield her face from the sun. Archie Roach sang his life, gently reminding us of atrocities inflicted on First People since invasion.

‘This story’s right, this story’s true
I would not tell lies to you
Like the promises they did not keep
And how they fenced us in like sheep.
Said to us come take our hand
Sent us off to mission land.
Taught us to read, to write and pray
Then they took the children away,
Took the children away,
The children away.
Snatched from their mother’s breast
Said this is for the best
Took them away.’

Thank Nature that the authorities have stopped stealing children.

Suse was living on Guana country back then, now she is travelling on the Darug, Gundungurra, Wanaruah, Wiradjuri, Darkinjung and Tharawal countries, formerly known as the Blue Mountains. She is still patiently, tirelessly meditating to shift our dreams.

Gulsen was on the Kulin Nation and brought a lady Buddha. Did she know that Suse was a practising buddhist? Honestly, Harken RC was Gulsen’s plan all along. She knew that a force of people would be needed to get us out of our trouble, to honour our hope and longing.

Shannon was also on Kulin Lands and brought a guitar that day, part of a growing collection of dormant instruments in her house. It didn’t take long for her to take up the challenge and step out from behind her camera, learning to pluck those strings to unleash uncertain melodies.

Hers is a beautiful allegory for the journey our culture has taken since 2020, stepping out from behind the mobile cameras and selfies that perpetuated cultural distancing. We stopped selling ourselves and stepped in, resumed creative practice, took risks and engaged. Slowly these practices moved from the periphery into the centre of our days. Our children and young people practice creative citizenry easily and with pride, it’s just part of who we are now. Harken RC is inspired by them. But there is still a great need to engage some of the older ones, mostly Boomers, Gen Xers and some of the Millennials, coaxing them to uncurl their grip on a heinously wasteful past, to centre them for now and what is still to come.

Because despite the hardship, the heat and the violence of transition, we managed to maintain resolute determination in simple low-fi creative action.

Through that determination came the music.

Building Bridges

Between our divisions

I’ll reach out to you, will you reach out to me

With all of our voices and all of our visions

Friends, we could make such sweet harmony

That simple ancient round found voice at the Women for Life on Earth camp, sung to those housing nuclear missiles at the Royal Airforce base at Greenham Common in Berkshire, England in the 1980s.

We were fearful in 2020. The summer of fires and then the Pandemic ripped us from lives we knew were unsustainable but couldn’t quite see a way out of. It was 2024, when the violence was completely out of control, that a new awakening started to take hold. Thank Nature that some of the enlightened ones remembered to sing. There was plenty of singing in the late 20^th century and early 2000s but it was so packaged into the noise of competition and transaction that it rarely cut through. Soulless chewing gum for amplified vocal chords drowned out the cries of suffering of endangered creatures. We couldn’t hear then.

Thankfully on the streets, here and across the world, people resisted the violence, reclaiming old songs to give voice to their fury, disaffection and hope.

El derecho de vivir
Sin miedo en nuestro país
En conciencia y unidad con toda la humanidad
Ningún cañón borrará
El surco de tu arrozal
El derecho de vivir en paz

Written by Chilean composer and singer-songwriter, Víctor Jara, in the 1970s, this song was inspired by the Vietnam War and once stood as an anthem for resistance against the brutal regime of Augusto Pinochet. It was revived in 2019 during anti-government protests in Santiago sung by a million people and went on to be used throughout the decade calling for the right to live in peace.

In the early 2020s, almost everyone was talking about the importance of story, regardless of which side of politics or which sector of work. Marketing machines smudged lines between fact, fiction, spin and lies. Social media spat it everywhere. It took a few years before we could start clambering out of the dystopian mindset to find different stories for our yarns to find the weft and warp of meaning. Stories are still important now, no question. Song and dance help them find form and connection.

Ancient song knowledge had always been here in Australia, of course. Like anything deeply true, the signs were all around us and had been for centuries. When First Peoples finally wrested the toxic colonial British and American systems and thinking away from the rest of us, suddenly there was light and breath. Long slow breath, straight to and from our bellies. The birds started coming back to our balconies and yards. It was sweet relief. Truth and reconciliation gatherings helped so many Australians understand the importance of listening, even when the truth is hard to hear. Back then, the powerful thin-lipped white men of few words and the puffy, arrogant white men of so many empty words strutted their power. They couldn’t imagine it would give way to millions of voices, black voices, children’s voices, women, people of colour and uniquely able voices, rising together.

And that really was a revelation, that we could join together, in one voice. Australia had no history of doing that, not since invasion. Most people connected their ancestry to places far away and mumbled their way through the national anthem, it just didn’t sit well. A few people had a go at revising the words and a new version was adopted officially in 2023. But to really own it, first we had to bravely open our mouths, twist our tongues to new sounds and embrace the divided world within Australia. Unable to travel for years, we were forced to be local and eventually we found each other. We learnt that creative endeavour shrinks distance and loosens the burden of rules and hard borders.

Perhaps that’s why, over time, Harken RC became necessary. We built it slowly, many of us in our local places. Now as we follow the songs through pilgrimage by foot or on cycles, it’s crazy to think about how people once lived on speed and waste in that ‘globalised’ world. Since new laws were passed in 2025, travelling rhythms are more balanced, fewer people in cars pay more attention to the huge number of walkers. You can hear them in this old Estonian folk song, sung during the singing revolution of the 1980s when 2 million people joined in a line of song that traversed three countries and over 600kms in a peaceful end to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR)

.

Rändaja, rändaja, rändaja laula Laula mulle oma, laula mulle oma üksinduse laulu Ma kuulan, ma kuulan, kuulan ja laulan Sinu üksindus on minu üksildus, su nukrus mu kurbus Kuu tõuseb, kuu tõuseb taevasse üles Päike loojund, päike loojund teistpoolde ilma Rändaja, rändaja, rändaja laulab Laulab mulle oma, laulab mulle oma üksinduse laulu

Traveller, traveller, traveller sing, sing me the song of your solitude, I’m listening, I’m listening, listening and singing. Your solitude is my loneliness, your sadness also mine, the Moon rises, the Moon rises up to the sky, The Sun has set, the Sun has set to the other side of the world, the traveller, the traveller, the traveller sings, sings me the song of his solitude.

Around 2028, we saw signs that country was starting to heal and that coincided with growing numbers of songs in traditional languages, filling our ears with ancient strength and purpose. More people notice how these songs change as we cross country now and have reshaped old ideas about states and regional centres with river and land rights and travelling wildlife.

We realised that those of us who had benefited from the time before transition had been too comfortable in the thirty years of warning.

We had stolen so much resource from the future.

We needed to pay back in order to pay forward.

Harken RC is designed with the hard-to-reach in mind. We know there are some who will never be recruited, hellbent on resurrecting a past we can never return to. Our intention is to raise voices to achieve the nearly impossible and keep singing together.

Today we remember the past, hope to recruit new listeners for the future and welcome you. It is this process and practice that keeps us in tune.

So, welcome to Harken RC, our song-stream for cultural citizenry, time reflections and song-line adventures. It is a space to think, to know and dream through learning our country’s songs. It is our commitment to Australia. Our journey lasts a lifetime and through joining others, in all places, a creative force is growing.

Our first offering of this inaugural song-stream is from our northern friends, a beautiful Mandarin melody to be sung when authoritarian forces are drowning out the sound of human suffering.

The Moon Represents My Heart (with guitar chords)

Ni (C) wen wo ai ni you duo (EM) shen,
(You asked me how deep my love is for you) —

Wo (F) ai ni you ji (C) fen.
(I love you to the utmost).

Wo de (Am)  qing ye zhen,
(My feeling is also true),

Wo de (F) ai ye zhen,
(My love is also true):

Yue liang (Dm) dai biao wo de (G) xin.
(The moon represents my heart).

With thanks to Gulsen for the seed, Jane for weaving some magic, Samantha for quenching our thirst with questions, Suse for her devotion, Shannon for the lens, Pippa for scribing and the many unheard voices who kept singing through dark times.

Experimental Times

Summer Issue, November 2029

Editorial

Jen Rae

We live in experimental times.

We are publishing this Special Edition to celebrate nearly a decade of incredible feats of courage and healing. Some would argue that the Covid-19 pandemic in Australia probably saved our country from ruin and from becoming the world’s largest solar farm. Experimental Times Editorial Staff are aligned with this thinking. In this Special Edition, we have compiled a collection of stories, highlighting how far we have come as a nation since then, and to inspirationally remind us that we have more purposeful work to do to dismantle over 240 years of ecological degradation and colonial oppression.

I am often reminded of a cartoon published in The Guardian in 2020 (I wish I had saved it). The cartoon depicts a personified earth staring down at a group of politicians. The humans are crying out ‘We can’t shut down the economy! We can’t end fossil fuels…etc’. In response, earth says ‘Here’s a pandemic, try’. Throughout Covid-19 crisis, we learned that change can come quickly where there is willpower and ingenuity…and, it can come in once unimaginable forms.

The forced stillness that the Covid-19 crisis brought, to the most privileged amongst us, was the recognition that our faulty human systems could no longer be upheld. We lost livelihoods and our secure footings. Many aspects of our lives that mattered, no longer mattered. At some point, ‘normal’, in its original form, became unrecognisable especially in the second wave where loss of lives mounted and fear set in. Sourdough cultures died. Vegetable patches wilted. We retreated and in the depths of grief, we wept.

We experienced what is now recognised as ‘anticipatory grief’, a deep-felt anxiety about our uncertain futures and the collective loss of normalcy. When we could no longer distract or medicate ourselves, our captivity pushed us toward self-reflection where we questioned institutional dependency, our comforts, conveniences and complicity. What more were we prepared to give up? And, what were we willing to fight for? Especially in relation to our well-being, kinship and our future generations.

Egos shed.

Humility rose.

We yearned for meaning to transcend the suffering.

We have heard countless stories of hyperlocal community mobilisations around water protection and food systems, rapid technological innovations to advance inclusive communications, and strategies of refusal against dinosaurian institutions and disaster capitalists. On page 8, artists Mauri Sha and Carolyn Ames share a story of trauma and recovery by taking us on a journey around the country with their incredibly successful community-led, land steward project, Gigatonnes. To date, everyday Australian ‘Protectionists’ have successfully reforested nearly 0.9 billion hectares since starting along the Merri Creek in 2021. The Gigatonnes Ecological Charter passed in 2027 protects these lands from any form of natural resource extraction, pollution or financial gains. This project leaves a legacy that will endure beyond lifetimes.

As months passed attempting to contain Covid-19 outbreaks, we began to grasp the scope of suffering beyond our own to those in other communities. We could no longer look away at the injustices. From the sudden lockdown of the Melbourne housing estates to the long food relief lines of stranded international students, everyday people mobilised and acted. On page 16, Aaden Farah tells the story of two disparate communities coming together during Covid-19 in solidarity and mutual aid support. Through mobilised rent and debt strikes, they successfully decommissioned high rise public and insecure student housing in Australia, and helped transition the University of Melbourne into an equitable public knowledge research and learning institute with a focus on social inclusion, public health and community resilience.

The pandemic woke us from sleepwalking into extinction and at the same time made us face our mortality. A collective awareness mounted that the climate emergency was bearing down on us. In doing so, our existential crises made way for existential choice. Through the pandemic, those of us who lagged behind climate change attentiveness quickly learned to trust scientists and act with purpose. There was an unspoken acknowledgement that we are the last generation to halt extinction and in doing so, hopefully secure a legacy for future generations. On page 24, activist Alice L. Hannan’s article Secure enough to be brave talks about how platforms of public value, normally privileged for the dominant classes, were handed over to children to have a voice in advocacy and decision-making around issues directly affecting future generations. In 2026, the Children’s Right to Vote Act was won permitting young people over the age of 15 to vote. Prime Minister Lidia Thorpe’s momentous speech on the day accompanies the article, translated in English.

The centre spread Acts of Refusal/Acts of Mutuality celebrates the moments of solidarity between Aboriginal communities, leaders and allies leading to the signing of the Aboriginal Treaty Act of 2024. Authors Claire G. Coleman and Alexis Wright discuss how the Treaty helps us all to reconceptualise our ways of living and learning in relation to the land through ceremony, land-based ethics, song and language. The Treaty enables the collectivisation of skills and resources to dismantle settler ecologies and halt the colonisation of the future.

We honour the bravery and are proud to bring this edition to you.

In solidarity,

Jen Rae and the editorial team 

Future generated by Jess, Jacqueline, Gabrielle, Kata and Jen

Future generated by Kelly-Lee, Rayna, Kerrii, Andy and Tim

IMAGE DESCRIPTION

A single sheet of dusty, yellowed paper, with the title words stacked and in bold, Many–Festo of Polyphonic Tenderness. The title is centred in between an image on the left of a pair of humans standing up with interlocking arms and legs, one with a rooster mask over their head, and another similar image on the right but this time one person is masked with a flower arrangement and the other with something resembling gas-mask. The title and images are underlined with two lines, and below lies the following text:

Imperfectly perfect creatures of the world, recombine!

We have nothing to lose but the chains

which keep us

apart

bound

unchanging

defined.

We hold these contradictions to be self-evident

that all human and non-human creatures evolved and continue to evolve

different

equally and unequally equivalent

sharing unalienable rights and wrongs, privileges and responsibilities;

that among these are

Life and Death

                                                                                    Liberty and Interdependence  

The Pursuit of Happiness and Presence of Grief.

Propagating from a decade which none is leaving without great pain and loss;

Appreciating the deep connections that have emerged from distance;

Celebrating the uncountable ways of being;

Learning diverse knowledges;

Moving with tenderness in a fragile solid world;

Improvising together our polyphonic symphony of care:

We declare right now the urgent need for patience: hurry up and slow down!

Perfectly imperfect creatures of the world, recombine!

We have a world to wean.

This iteration of the many-festo realised on this first day of southern spring, 2029

From conversation between Kelly-Lee, Rayna, Kerrii and Andy

Dispatched by Tim Hollo

An audience with the Disabled Oracle: edited notes on an address to the ‘reforming able-bodied males’ syndicate (Meeting 2, October 2029).

Like you, friends, I am feeling broken. The devastation that we now live with on a daily basis was forewarned— the heat, the disaster, the deaths. And it sits upon our shoulders, the white able-bodied male to explain why our forefathers and indeed, some of us in this very room, could have willingly perpetuated this culture of death. You will remember in our prior meeting that the conversation turned to the ancient Greek archetype of Cassandra. To summarise: she was a gifted oracle whose prophecies were never believed; such an archetype warned us for a century through the many activist voices that tried to attract our attention, of the devastation now upon us. Our dismissive Apollonian attitudes, which we now recognise as economic determinism masquerading as reason, has brought us to this terrible place. Our syndicate has dedicated its energies to the rebuilding of a new society, starting with our own transformation.

We share a charter that seeks to define a new man, not by normative definition, but one in which each person might know the possibilities of their becoming. And this begins with the undoing and recreation of ourselves. In this effort, as promised in our first meeting, I have visited the Disabled Oracle. Today, I share with you my experiences.

The Disabled Oracle, as we know, has become a society-wide transformative surge, helping us to let go of long-held attitudes. An audience with the Disabled Oracle is both tender and strong; perhaps it is the tone of her voice, or the atmosphere she produces, or simply the wisdom of her words, but I experienced what others have described – an immediate connection with pain. An introspection; a wondering. Why have I believed the things I have; why have I allowed the outward face of society to crush the creative perturbations of my being; how have I so easily been forced into a homogenized countenance?

Since, I have further reflected on this encounter. It seems to me that the pain of normalcy is the mental fatigue created by our perpetual psychic offerings, towards the preservation of cultural norms. An exertion concomitant with pain. A pain of which the Disabled Oracle is somehow able to put us in touch. The pain of my own exhaustion was revealed to me through tears, echoed by others around me. I experienced a cascade of memories: being accused of not being normal, of not being a man, of not fitting in; the possibilities of my own sensitivities and potential disabled by a society intent on producing a certain type of human figure…

Let’s turn for a moment to the historical archetype who best symbolises this human figure: Vitruvian man. He who so willingly bound himself to two geometrical figures—the circle of progress and the square of certainty. Suspended within these abstractions the Vitruvian man gazes at us through his long flowing hair and powerful physique; strong and steady – so, perfect. And yet, he is bound and immobile. Unable to move, he could never descend from his podium to meet the oracle. Rather he would glare at her from afar, asking why she isn’t he. The demand for normalcy would disable her potential, and it is this force which our syndicate, like the others, must become active in disassembling.

It is interesting to consider that the prefix dis-, can mean reversal. The Disabled Oracle can reverse the exterior gaze of Vitruvian man to one of inner reflection; it is this disabling of certainty and the enabling of empathy and understanding that is so crucial to our time. Experiencing this pain taught me that each of us pays a significant mental cost for the prize of being considered normal and/or perfect. How can we men undo ourselves, our certainty and commitment? How can we allow our energies to become unbound and float outwards, towards new possibilities? That we might come to enrich our understanding of the world and be a part of a diversity of becomings – where there is no male any longer, but only expressions of respectful strength – stable, open and gentle…

The Disabled Oracle gave me a chance to see what lay behind my pain: the power to transform. This has somehow given my own creative energies permission to expand beyond the bindings of normative codes. I believe it is the dispelling of perfection, and its concomitant pressures to act normally, that is crucial for the becoming of the new world to which our syndicate has committed.

Friends, thank you for listening. Together, let us continue our syndicate’s journey towards dis-perfection…

Future generated by Elizabeth D, Ana, Elizabeth R, David and Jordan.

Written by Jordan Lacey.

Anonymous X Disabled Oracle Society digital thunder clap

6 August 2029

Like a chorus of seasonal blooms, underground hackers linked to collectivist hacktivist group, Anonymous, and to the Disabled Oracle Society orchestrated a digital thunderclap across all digital platforms, screens and monitors on earth.

Enough screenshots of the message – a poem, a plea – occurred before authorities could force a blackout.

Their message was clear.

Future generated by Samantha, Melanie, Natalie, Leanne, Samira and Huong. Written and created by Huong Truong.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION

A4 sized colour illustration with lines of a poem scattered in white font on black blockout strips.

An adult person in a white, full hazmat suit is walking alone in a smoggy brown-red landscape under deep blue-green starry night sky.

The hazmat suit has a glass face shield revealing a black gas mask covering the person’s whole face.

A black square label on the chest of the hazmat suit reads the corporate logo of ‘McEdit’. The suited person wears a blue back pack filled with blue gene-editing herbicide.

A small white orchid in the ground at the human’s feet sits protected under a glass cloche. Its red roots and rhizomes travel horizontally underground across the bottom of entire image.

The hazmat suited person has dirty blue safety gloves and boots, and carries a spray hose, spraying blue poison on bright red ‘weeds’. These weeds rise up through the ground from underground rhizomes originating from the orchid under the cloche.

Nearby, to the right of the image, is a cyclone wire mesh fence topped with barbed wire. Some of the underground rhizome run under the fence, beyond the reach of the person’s herbicide.

The poem overlaying the image reads:

Nature does not make mistakes.

She seeks only balance in diversity.

Will we take our time to learn her wisdom,

honour her truth?

Or will we keep failing each other,

our ancestors,

and ourselves?

And deny humanity the chance to attune

to the resistance that always was

and forever in our DNA?

End Image Description

The New Sun Times

August 12, 2029

Editorial

THE DONUT SWALLOWS THE HOLE

By Tim Baker

We tell our stories and truths in our own words. We define who we are and our place in the world. We fight to be seen and heard. We live in defiance with joy and radical acceptance. I too am tired of defending my worth every day to people obsessed with having everything faster, shinier, newer. What can we do? How do we love and hold each other up so we keep on going as a community? How can we harness our imagination to create a world that we want to live in right and in the future? – Alice Wong, Assembly For the Future, July 6^th, 2020.

In 2020, then Disability Justice advocate Alice Wong engaged in a little creative time travel and delivered a stirring warning to humanity from the year 2029. Proclaiming herself The Last Disabled Oracle, she spoke at the inaugural Assembly for the Future, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, and painted a chilling picture of the path gene editing and a misguided quest to “perfect” humankind would take us on. That landmark speech set in train a series of events that ultimately led to the transition of the Rebel Alliance into the formation of The People’s Tribunal, which, as we know, has made a truly representative form of democracy possible.

As the virus illuminated society’s inequities and fault lines, Alice imagined a new world based upon social justice for all, a vision that proved so captivating, a global organic movement formed around it including Alice’s own Disabled Oracles Society. While she sounded the alarm of what was at stake in the developing frontier of genetic engineering, humanity awoke to the shocking realisation that we risked having our very humanity stripped away.

In the midst of the upheaval of the pandemic, economists baying for the sacrifice of human lives in the name of this intangible entity, the economy, gradually awoke the populace to the rigged system they’d been victims of. One mid-pandemic newspaper headline laid bare this illusionary dissonance. “Economy to bounce back, jobs and wages won’t.” What was this cruel master that needed to be fed the bodies of the marginalised and immuno-compromised and how many of us had to realise we were being relegated to the margins to bring an end to this de-humanising system?

This process became known as “the donut effect”, first espoused by urban planners in the 20^th C and popularised in the cultural sphere by Sydney Festival director Wesley Enoch, where society’s centre began to appear increasingly empty or hollow, a moral vacuum, and its real substance, its heft, its essence and tastiness dwelt in the outer circle, the margins. As various marginalised communities formed connections and shared resources, the hollowed-out centre felt its moral authority evaporate, while marginalised communities discovered their combined energies represented a formidable force for change.

A loose alliance of disability advocates, environmental and social justice activists, Indigenous leaders, refugee groups, migrant communities, artists, the under-employed and the homeless, those who have battled addiction and mental health issues, came together in the wake of the Pandemic, harnessing the momentum of community building and grass roots activism the virus inspired. This potent intersection formed the basis of the Rebel Alliance.

As we wrestled with a rolling series of crises through the 2020s, environmental, economic, social and health-related, those on the margins seemed to have the firmest grip on the solutions. Those who had suffered, endured, known deep pain, and felt society’s disdain and neglect, it was these communities who arose and were best equipped to live with the uncertainties of the age. Instead of being seen as “vulnerable,” those on the margins seemed to channel ancient traditional wisdom in converting poison into power, proving that those who had suffered most at the hands of a cruel capitalist system were best qualified to heals its wounds and guide us to a better future.

Alice Wong’s Disabled Oracle Society seized its moment in the public debate around gene editing to inspire new definitions of health, a new appreciation of difference, new concepts of time and human value and highlighting the interdependence of these marginalised communities. As the economic establishment put forward chilling assessments of who was considered dispensable to the machinations of the capitalist system and who was not, it was glaringly obvious that this system no longer served the people, in fact, we were required to serve it or be rendered obsolete. The rise of gene editing was soon seen as nothing short of cultural genocide.

What arose out of the pandemic and the societal soul-searching it inspired, was a heightened sense of community and a regard for the special skill sets acquired by and required of those formerly shunted to the margins. As entire populations were pushed into states of vulnerability and uncertainty, the resilience, patience, strength and perspective of marginalised communities were recognised as guiding principles for a new paradigm.

While capitalism and colonialism had required a speeding up of time, with their ruthless notions of productivity and growth, the post-pandemic world view re-claimed an alignment with the natural rhythms of time evident all around us in seasonal cycles, organic and circular processes of growth and decay. The enforced isolation and slowing down of pandemic lockdown allowed humanity to fall back into synchronisation with these natural rhythms, stirring deep ancestral memory when society’s cues were taken from the appearance of a particular flower, the migration of animals, the availability of seasonal foods. Once felt, this generational wisdom could not be un-known and the false gods and artifices of capitalism, perpetual growth and market forces soon fell.

The Rebel Alliance emerged as a guerrilla movement with no less an ambition than the overthrow of capitalism. But rather than fighting an entrenched economic system, it soon evolved a strategy of by-passing it altogether, of forging a society where inter-connected communities met each other’s needs in healthy symbiotic relationships rather than throwing money at having them inadequately papered over by consumerism, uncaring corporations and shiny trinkets. The result was a quantum leap in human consciousness and empathy that recognised our shared fate as single cells in the greater organism of humanity.

The shared values of the Rebel Alliance spread so widely and were embraced so universally that the hollowness at the centre of the old system’s donut became un-ignorable and un-sustainable. Like the emperor with no clothes, once it was pointed out it could not be un-seen. And so, the Rebel Alliance’s principles of collective action and community empowerment became enshrined in the formation of The People’s Tribunal, which soon became an essential layer of veto in our governance systems. Randomly selected community members convened to discuss and debate critical societal issues and make recommendations to government that truly reflected community standards freed of the corrupting influence of lobbyists and vested interests. The donut had swallowed the hole. In its place nothing less than a new definition of wealth evolved. As anthropologist Wade Davis wrote in a blistering analysis of the decline of the US at the height of the 2020 pandemic: “The measure of wealth in a civilized nation is not the currency accumulated by the lucky few, but rather the strength and resonance of social relations and the bonds of reciprocity that connect all people in common purpose.”

Today, we celebrate this evolution in our collective decision making and the empowerment of communities to truly determine their own destinies – in which every voice is heard, all lives are valued and no one is left behind. The results have been profound – a restoration of faith in our governance systems, adequate protections for the environment, the safeguarding of human rights, a heightened regard for the humanising role of the arts in society, the wisdom of formerly marginalised groups brought to the fore, the rise of a new spiritualism that relies not on the dogma of any one religion but the unifying humanitarian principles they all share. The catchcry of the Disabled Oracles Society grew into a mainstream chorus, “Nothing about us without us.”

The struggles and hardship of this inspiring movement, the ancestors and elders of marginalised communities, have brought us to a brighter future but there remains much work to be done. From each of us is required a searching self-awareness, a transcendence of self-interest, a heartfelt embrace of the common good. Today, just as we celebrate the progress made together we here, at The New Sun Times, re-commit to the arduous journey ahead to complete this societal transformation.

Future generated by Jude, Kelly, Hanna, Susan, Ellis, Kata and Tim.

Future generated by Beverly, Bron, Deborah, Joshua, Robert, Pippa. Written by Pippa Bailey.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION:

Three pages of text as follows, but each time the word ‘fungus’ appears it is written in bold, with the letters UN capitalised, and in a font different to the rest of the text, that is blurred at the edges and suggestive of something growing out from each letter.

PROCLAMATION

UNUN Day of Celebration

October 24, 2029

Gondwanaland Region

Continent 7

Deadly Dirt Rave

The fUNgus

Amongst Us

CALL OUT

To all UN communities across the world:

Register your local Altar Festivities for this important day of global celebration.

The UNUN Treaties Collection is available for all communities to access.

Please note that 2029 is the 7th anniversary of the First Nations Treaties within Continent 7, formerly known as Australia.

Citizens are encouraged to register needs yet to be captured.

We remain committed to equity at the highest level.

Breathe Together.

Please crypto-message the Dispersed Headquarters of UNUN

to upload invitations and orders of procedure.

Alert others to let them know whether your community will welcome visitors

or be a closed event

due to illness or sorry business.

THEME 2029

The theme for this year’s celebration is

fUNgus.

A mere 10 years ago fUNgus was starting to be generatively used to address the Climate Crisis but few could have predicted the vital role it would play.

Now the fungal kingdom is celebrated in all its eukaryotic glory.

Yeasts, moulds and microorganisms are key to our interconnected future.

As many will already know, fUNgus has been around for more than 400 million years. With strong evidence that it was the dominant life form on Earth 250 million years ago, there is increasingly detailed evidence of close human relationship to this kingdom and recognition that ancient Aboriginal fungal lore and knowledge has been passed orally from generation to generation. It was traditionally used for medicines, food and recreation.

We rely on fUNgus for lifesaving drugs, biobased fuels, fragrances, adhesives, durable lightweight packaging that can be made into shoes and a growing suite of small biological molecules. Most significantly the Aspergillus tubingensis species of fUNgus has been developed to destroy plastic and is helping to resolve the waste crisis created from the 1950s to the 2020s. Most exciting was the applied use of this fungal process in saltwater to reduce the plastic soup in our oceans. Alongside the scientific development came a popularity of liquid fungal fermentation that has rapidly spread. When psilocybin was legalised in 2024, micro-dosing became a popular pastime, opening hearts and spirits for the great UNdoing. Creative energy and purpose was UNleashed.

Transition from chemical factories to biological fermenters saw the culture embrace fUNgus ceremonies.

This year honours thriving rituals, popular in many parts of the world.

Bend your brain and UNwind!

IDEATION

Thanks to the local quorum of the Kulin Nation Chapter of

the UNUN Youth Peace and Environmental Protection Corps,

who determined the theme and look of this year’s Deadly Dirt Rave.

Dress-Code

1990s

DJ

Funkmaster Vinnie

Get your shrooms on!

Entertainment

The Busy Workers

Participate in the comic rituals of bureaucrats

(so that we never go back to those bad old days!)

Communities of care

Former prisoners share stories of prison life,

former billionaires randomly distribute more sequestered funds.

Choir of the UNvoiced

Long table feasting

Advance Fermentation Parties

(why wait to celebrate!)

Special Guest

The Prof

Breathe Together

SUPPORTING TRANSMISSIONS

MEMORY BACKLOG             Formerly ‘United Nations Day’, communities across earth have transitioned this international event through the Dispersed UNUN. This will be the 82nd day of celebration since ‘United Nations Day’ was first conceived as an international day of recognition in 1947. Since the United Nations decentralised in 2024, the UNUN has refocused locally into a myriad of mobile departments across the 7 continents, responding to local challenges and conditions while still being able to seek knowledge and advice from the whole system. This action was a cornerstone of the era of the great UNdoing of bureaucracy and authoritarian structures to reimagine the UNjust. The institutions formerly known as police, defence forces and correctional facilities were UNmade with justice redirected to care and foster programs within communities. Removing UNnecessary fences, walls and borders was an important start to the process. The Peace and Environmental Protection Corps now move between communities and countries caring for the many pop-up refugee camps that emerge as rolling disasters.

ORACLE ALERT      During Altar Festivities, the fungus ceremonies will stir our Oracles, those who were once marginalised, to keep watch for signs of war. Chapters around the world will be tuning in and preparing for end-of-season announcements. We must be vigilant and listen deeply. Our Oracles keep us alert to shadow forces that threaten our new, UNreal way of life.

Dispatch prepared by Comms Team, Dispersed Headquarters of UNUN: Beverly, Bron, Deborah, Joshua, Robert, Pippa

Future generated by Mali, Jodee, John, Tal, Lara and El

Written by El Gibbs

IMAGE DESCRIPTION

Three pages of a document, each stamped diagonally in red ink with the words MISSION STATUS: RESOLVED, and a footer on each consecutive page with the text ‘Briefing: Mission AF #4.2, 1/11082029’, ‘Briefing: Mission AF 2/11082029’, ‘Briefing: Mission AF 3/11082029’. The full text of the three documents is as follows:

Briefing: Mission AF #4.2

11 August 2029

Mission objectives

• Infiltrate the Core Data Centre (CDC) located on Wann-gal land (Homebush, in Sydney)
• Destroy DNA profiles and surveillance data, along with the CDC itself
• Protect our community

Situation

The CDC is a direct threat to our community and the principles that guide us. The Area Council believes that the CDC, and the associated DNA records, must be destroyed. The Council also requests that all associated DNA and surveillance data are also completely erased.

The destruction of the data will enable those disabled people still hiding in Sydney to escape and is being coordinated as part of a wider national resistance to the use of DNA to control communities.

Background

The Western Regional Council resolved in 2028, after the DNA Access Bill passed, which linked DNA profiles with access to public and private services, to oppose the CDC and everything that came with it.

The DNA Access Bill created the CDC where registering DNA is now mandatory for access to any public or private services. Those found to have ‘defective’ DNA no longer have access to services, nor to public and private spaces. There have been public campaigns promoting ‘wellness’ and ‘health’ to encourage citizens to report anyone who ‘needs repair’.

The Bill means that health, education, transport and other services are now only available to those whose DNA is registered with the CDC. Access to services is also prioritised for those with ‘defect-free’ DNA. DNA repair is now mandatory. The NDIS was abolished as part of the passage of this Bill.

DNA is collected by force from all in the Sydney metropolitan area, and from all public and private spaces, and entered into the CDC. The CDC is linked to facial recognition and other identification tools, which are used by police and private security to enforce access.

So called ‘defective’ people are pushed to the fringes of major Australian cities, and now out into regional areas.

The DNA collection, and the associated enforcement measures, have led to a considerable influx of disabled people to our area, particularly disabled Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and disabled people of colour. So-called ‘defects’ are screening out anyone who fails to meet a narrow, ideal of what a person is, and what value they have.

The development, and subsequent widespread usage of CRISPR and its associated technology, further deepened the inequalities that were present in 2020. Under the guise of creating a better world, genetic modification has proliferated, both for new and existing humans.

Disabled people, eliminated and shut out of this new world, have worked to create new communities where we can, in the words of that famous disabled oracle herself, Alice Wong, ‘live in defiance with joy and radical acceptance’. Using the original disability justice beliefs that all bodies are whole, unique and essential, we have crafted community that prioritises care for everyone, according to their needs and desires, since 2025. We are committed to fighting for that community.

Personnel

This mission will be conducted by the key individuals selected by the Council for this task, from the overwhelming number of volunteers. These individuals will be led by disabled people, as they have led all aspects of the resistance to the CDC across Australia.

Personnel will be equipped with appropriate DNA-masking technology, as well as measures to hide their impairments from the CDC police. The Council thanks personnel for their willingness to take this step.

Execution

Mission personnel will cross Dharug and Gundangara country by hiding in freight transport on the Saturday train. The train passes through at 4am, and will slow enough for boarding at exactly 4.04am near the old Lithgow station. There are allies to the resistance among train staff.

You will enter the freight boxes, after setting up the masking tech to get through the checkpoints at Parramatta. The train will terminate there, and personnel will disembark and make their way towards the CDC.

Personnel will collect the materials needed to execute their mission goals from the checkpoints and allies who will meet them at the agreed time and place. Allies inside the CDC-controlled areas will have what is needed to gain access to the CDC, and to destroy the data.

Communications

Once personnel board the Saturday freight train, there will be no further communications with the Council.

Allies in the CDC-controlled area have been briefed in advance, and there will be no communications between yourselves and their teams. You will meet as arranged.

If there are any disruptions, the mission personnel are instructed to use their superior problem-solving skills to adapt and achieve the mission objectives.

The Council will monitor both the official, and unofficial webs to measure progress of personnel.

Logistics

Mission personnel will be equipped with the following:

• Valid CDC DNA defect-free identity cards
• DNA masking tech
• Facial recognition disrupters
• Information about weapon and explosive caches (to be destroyed before crossing checkpoint)
• Names and contacts for allies (to be destroyed before boarding Saturday freight train)

Mission success indicators

The mission will be considered a success if the CDC’s operations are disrupted, and if DNA and surveillance data is destroyed.

It is not expected that any personnel will return to Wiradjuri country. The Council values the willingness of the disabled personnel to make so many sacrifices for the success of this mission on behalf of our whole community.

We are the resistance. We resist those who say we should not exist. We resist those who try to regulate us away. We resist and move together, no body left behind.

Future generated by Sam, David, Sophie, Deb, Holly and Amber. Written by Amber Hammill.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION

A violet purple background, with a circle in the middle made up of small rectangular cells and faint orange concentric circles. The text overlaid is in two columns on each side of the circle, whereby each line of text is formatted in an arc, following the curve of the circle. The text is as follows:

OBJECT DESIGN REQUEST:

TimePeace

Object goals

The TimePeace is a tool conceived by The Future Builders Alliance to reflect and support the management of the time resources of all Future Builders, individually and as collectives.

The tool should enable Members Collectives within the Alliance to reflect the goals, principles and achievements of the Slow Down following the Pandemic and Workers’ Uprisings in the early 20s.

The TimePeace needs to leave room for and encourage the planning of all aspects of this collective enterprise and take account of the environmental, geographic and social contexts worldwide in which Alliance members work.

Functionality

The TimePeace needs to allow users to record periods in which they are, or intend to be, using their time resources on:

• Tasks
• Care
• Rest
• Play
• Spontaneous miracles

Celestial, Terrestrial and Spiritual Others must hold the centre of the TimePeace and invite users to manage their time resources in the full knowledge of those cycles.

The TimePeace needs to recalibrate regularly using information from the user’s Attuning Fork.

The TimePeace should support Future Builders in their goal of UNbusyness and help them maintain their commitments to honor the rhythms of their own lives, value their own time resources and the time resources of all others in honour of the achievements of the Slow Down.

Scope of the project

The TimePeace needs to operate at all time-scales, and allow and encourage reference to the past, present and future. The TimePeace should encourage connection between these tenses.

Each TimePeace User should be able to see how their time-use is complemented or challenged by other Users, but also Celestial, Terrestrial and Spiritual Others.

Viewed together, the individual contributions to the TimePeace will illuminate the polyphonic symphonies of care and collaboration, rest and play.

Data from historical records relating to climate, genealogy, and all others needs to be stored within the TimePeace – it will be impossible to build a future without a living, deep and evolving understanding of our past.

Available materials/required materials

The TimePeace needs to operate on local neighbourhood webs globally, so should be low-powered and resource-neutral.

Target audience

The TimePeace is intended for Future Builders worldwide, of all ages. Please refer to the Disabled Oracles’ Handbook which details best practice on designing across platforms for multi-user functionality.

Overall style/look

The TimePeace should reflect the non-linear experience of time at all scales.

Privacy settings

The TimePeace is a crypto-current tool calibrated to a person’s real-time biometrics to resist third-party data breaches.

This brief was compiled by Amber on behalf of Sam, David, Sophie, Deb and Holly