Category: Blogging

Campaigning: Most of the time it’s an unpaid and thankless job.

I tell you what. I’ve been working on campaigns since 2003 and while it’s led me to being a much better person, given me a lot of skills and some AMAZING friends and contacts; it’s mostly a fucking thankless job.

Most of the time you are not winning.

Most of the time you are fighting like hell just to hold on to what we’ve got. Sometimes you are losing. Losing lives to suicide. Losing lives to deaths in custody. Losing land to clearing. Losing biodiversity. Losing community. Losing culture. Losing a chance at a safe future free of human-induced climate chaos.

Most of the time you are not getting the thanks you should get.

Most of the time you are getting called names. Most of the time you are getting harassed. Most of the time people just want to argue with you, so they take positions they don’t really hold just to test you. Most of the time you are left seething with rage. Most of the time you are upset. Most of the time others have no idea what is going on in your head.

I’ve been character assassinated.

I’ve had people say I’m a stooge for big business, that I’m only in it for ‘personal glory’, that I only do this work because they think I “want to be Prime Minister”. I’ve lost jobs over it. I’ve quit jobs over it. I’ve lost friends over it. I’ve dumped friends over it. I’ve fought with family. I’ve been ridiculed by friends and family.

I’ve been told I’ll never make a difference.

I’ve been repeatedly told my actions have no impact.

But then we’ve won. We’ve suddenly, out of nowhere had a win. A tactic has worked. A government has caved in. A government has been defeated. A company has given up. People have changed their minds.

After over a full solid year of committing THOUSANDS of hours to lead a solid team of volunteers organising an awesome campaign, I’m fucking exhausted.

I’m not financially better off. In fact I’m out of pocket – from supporting the team financially during emergencies, from working less to commit more volunteering time without losing my own sanity.

But I’ve also never been more proud of myself.

I’ve never done anything in my life that was more important than this.

And the only thanks I really care about, I get all the time – from Clinton himself.

It’s always worth it. But it ain’t ever easy.

We need each other… (The best words from Progress 2015)

If there’s one thing I took away from #Progress2015, it’s that we need each other.

We need to be actively build deep cross-campaign and inter-community relationships. Our causes are all STRONGLY connected and so are our audiences – but we as individual people are not yet, and we need to be.

So hi, I’m Luke. I run online comms for a union, consult in online comms for several popular hip hop artists and a heap of causes, and have been managing/admin in online communities since IRC in 1996.

I am very interested in the space where online communities and communication meets (positive) real world actions.

I’ve got experience in turning people out to gigs/protests/actions, crowd-sourcing for causes (or to get me to Progress!), obsessively following hashtags with up-to-the-moment live coverage of amazing events overseas when I should be sleeping, developing new friendships//meeting new people online.

Actually, I met many/most of the closest people in my life online before real life: Continue reading We need each other… (The best words from Progress 2015)

Liberal Party policy setting is all wrong

AbetzUgh. The Liberal Party have screwed up the Australian Government’s policy setting again, as we who pay attention knew they would.

Palmer and his cohorts played along, happy to cut a tax which would save his business millions while costing the Australian public billions.

It’s appalling, and next (literally, tomorrow) they’ll be trying to roll back workplace rights for all Australian workers by essentially re-introducing the majority of their previous ‘WorkChoices’ policy.

There’s a pro-forma email to cross bench senators asking them not to support the changes, click here to see it.

Whoops. #100daysofblogging #Day92

So I missed a day of blogging yesterday AND friday this week.

I’ve been doing this #100daysofblogging challenge for 92 days now and I’ve only missed 3 days, but I’ve ‘cheat posted’ a fair few time. Probably about 25% of the time.

That’s alright though, because it shows I have my priorities right. I’m not going to just drop all my other commitments because I whimsically chose to start a 100 day long blogging challenge.

But I’ve learned a fair bit along the way too. Continue reading Whoops. #100daysofblogging #Day92

Stop ‘moving on’ – a message to White Australia.

It’s very easy to say “yes that ‘happened’, but we’ve moved on”, when you are on the perpetrating, winning or ‘privileged’ side of that ‘thing’ which ‘happened’.

I see it all the time in White Australia.

As a white kid growing up that was the attitude I was taught toward history, that history was just a bunch of interesting stories that happened in the past. Stories we should enjoy and remember, but barely any different from fiction.

Who knows what is and isn’t true about history I was told. History is written by the victor, I was told. History is mostly about wars and how they were won, I was told.

In White Australia, we do not pay much attention to history as a general social rule and where we do our inability to do so respectfully is infamous.

Tony Abbott’s latest declaration is absolutely indicative of that:

“The arrival of the first fleet was the defining moment in the history of this continent. Let me repeat that: it was the defining moment in the history of this continent,” (emphasis added). 

I disagree. Certainly that was a defining moment in the history of this continent, but this continent’s history is MUCH longer than the history of this ‘country’. Continue reading Stop ‘moving on’ – a message to White Australia.