Living the Dream

In this episode Dave talks with Bridget Harilaou about the recent Imagining Abolition Conference organised by Sisters Inside . Bridget discusses the ideas that were discussed there, their implications for struggles and the kind of future abolishing prisons points to. She digs into how prisons quilt together histories of colonialism, the operation of patriarchy and the oppression of Indigenous peop...

2019! Wooooo! In this episode of Living The Dream Jon (@jonpiccini) and Dave (@withsobersenses) take off the party-hats, pick the streamers from their shoulders of their tuxedo jackets, set aside the Champagne flutes and have a chat about what 2018 was all about what we think is going to happen in 2019. Climate Change, fascism, #libspill, disaster communism, power prices, radical social democracy,...

In this episode Dave (@withsobersenses) chats with Andrew(@fernandre3000) and Feargal(@feargal89) from the Anti-Poverty Network Qld . We talk about what they have been up to, what their strategy is and how this has gone. APN Qld are one of the most exciting developments going on in Queensland right now with friends and comrades leaving old and stale forms of activism behind to experiment with orga...

In this episode Dave(@withsobersenses) chats again with Michael. We talk about a recent article he wrote on Universal Basic Income and the debates it sparked with proponents of a Jobs Guarantee, his attendance at and thoughts on Tim Soutphommasane’s recent Whitlam Institute speech on combating racism, and Michael’s participation in recent struggles for increased Public Housing.   Stuff we mention...

In this episode Dave (@withsobersenses) and Jon (@jonpiccini) catch up with Simon Copland (@SimonCopland) ‏ again. We talk about how despite the plebiscite being a fantastic victory the Left (for lack of a better term) seems determined to see it as a defeat and what the impact of this is. Simon also talks about going to, live tweeting from and then writing about a recent Lauren Southern and Stefan...

In this episode Dave (@withsobersenses) chats with friend of the show Michael. Michael talks about how the NDIS has changed the experience of those that work in care and community services, how it has impacted work conditions and how it has undermined the kind of care that those on the NDIS receive. We also talk about what does this mean for struggle around these issues? What are the unions doing?...

In this episode Dave(@withsobersenses) and Jon (@jonpiccini) chat with Padraic Gibson (@paddygibson) about his research into the Communist Party of Australia and its early, or lack there of, engagement with Indigenous struggles in the 1920s and 30s. Not only is the history fascinating but Paddy also really digs into what was wrong with socialist and communist thought at the time, and the inheritan...

It has been twenty years since the Wharf Dispute between Patrick Stevedores and the Coalition Government on one side and the Maritime Union of Australia, the Trade Unions and supporters on the other. This was (so far) the last set piece national confrontation between Capital and Labour over a specific industrial dispute to happen in Australia. In this episode Dave (@withsobersenses) chats with Nic...

What the hell is going on globally? In this (short) episode Dave (@withsobersenses) tries to think through the fracturing of the global order: the split in the G7, the end of QE by the US Federal Reserve and the ECB and the looming possibility of more US tariffs on Chinese imports. How do we understanding these phenomena? Why are they happening and what does it all mean? This is our 50th Episode!...

This is Part 2 of our 2-part show with Tanya Serisier  about #metoo, feminism and the struggle against gendered and sexual violence. This show fleshes out the problems of the notion of consent as a solution to gendered and sexual violence, the continuing importance of the lessons of 70s feminism, including much-maligned lesbian separatism, how feminism has forced a rethink of what politics and pow...

This episode is part one of a two-part interview with feminist scholar and activist Tanya Serisier . Tanya and Dave(@withsobersenses) discuss how #metoo can be understood in the history of feminist struggle against, and thought about, gendered sexual violence. Tanya discusses how complex these issues are: they evade easy answers and they bring up difficult questions about where such violence comes...

In this episode of Living The Dream (@withsobersenses) chats with Aaron and Michelle at Bad Habit Records about what’s happening in Ipswich. The council is engulfed in a corruption scandal (complete with bashings in the forest), the centre of the town is in dire straits caught between neglect and a development project, the local economy is suffering except for a massive real estate venture in Spri...

This episode is a recording from Marx200 Brisbane  of Dave's (@withsobersenses) presentation on Marx's Theories of Crisis . Music by Stereolab

In this episode Dave (@withsobersenses) grabs a recorder and heads to the Labour Day rally. He interviews friends and comrades about the rally, what they think the impact of #ChangeTheRules has been, and if there is any opportunity to broaden and open up struggle? Due to a moments hestitation he didn't try to interview Sally McManus as she walked past. Music by Alistair Hulet

In this episode of Living The Dream Dave (@withsobersenses) tries to start an analysis of the Trump administration’s trade and tariff policy. Why has the Australian Left been so paralysed over this question? What sense can we make of it? How do we understand the policies of the state in the broader dynamics of world capitalism?  Stuff mentioned includes:   U.S. Admits That Politics Was Behind Stee...

In this episode Dave (@withsobersenses) chats with Vanamali Hermans (@VChristabel) about the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS). Whilst billed as ‘the most significant economic and social reform since the introduction of Medicare in the 1970s’ Vanamali shows how the NDIS often means the reduction in services for those with disabilities and bureaucratic hellishness. We discuss why this is...

In this episode of Living the Dream Jon (@jonpiccini) and Dave (@withsobersenses) chat with Eleanor Robertson (@marrowing) about if we are living in a feminist moment and what that means. We focus our conversation on two of her articles from Meanjin . We discuss why it is that so much of contemporary feminism focuses on representations in popular culture – what does that tell us about both feminis...

In this episode of Living the Dream Jon (@jonpiccini) and Dave (@withsobersenses) talk with Tad Tietze (@Dr_Tad) about the idea of antipolitics he developed with Elizabeth Humphrys(@liz_beths). We talk about what politics is and how it relates to capitalism and the state. Tad argues that politics is increasingly detached from society and what this means and how communism as ‘the real movement’ can...

Welcome to 2018! In this episode Jon (@JonPiccini) and Dave (@withsobersenses) look into the swirling mists of the crystal ball of class struggle and try to work out what’s going on in 2018 and what happened in 2017. It’s a wide ranging chat about race, class, Invasion Day, strikes that didn’t happen and plebiscites. Will the experiments in radical social democracy continue to gain traction? What’...

Workers of the world unite, right? Okay, but how? This is a special episode where Shane Reside, an organiser with the International Transport Workers Federation, interviews Jamie K McCallum (@jamiekmccallum)  author of Global Unions, Local Power: The New Spirit of Transnational Labor Organizing about a new kind of labour internationalism: the global union federation. What are they? Where did they...

In this special #qldvotes2017 episode of Living The Dream Jon (@jonpiccini) and Dave (@withsobersenses) engage in all the froth and illusion of electoral politics. We chat about the broader situation in Queensland and the impact of the slowdown of capital accumulation and the rise in state debt and the general degeneration of all the major parties. What is the ALP government all about and why is i...

    Australia is currently in the midst of a non-binding postal survey on same-sex marriage and it seems likely that the ‘Yes’ vote will win by a massive majority. Yet the ‘Left’ and supporters of same-sex marriage seem miserable and downcast about this. In this episode Simon Copland (@SimonCopland) helps Jon (@jonpiccini) and Dave (@withsobersenses) make sense of it all. We talk about the role th...

In episode 2 of Marx’s Textbook Dave (@withsobersenses) looks at two very different ways of understanding the broad dynamics of capitalism. Mainstream economics asks us to think of capitalism as simply a system of wealth creation and consider questions of what is or isn’t an efficient use of resources and when or if the state should intervene; whilst Marx argues that capitalism is primarily compel...

Marx’s Textbook Ep.1: An Introduction to the Critique of Capitalism & of Economics   This is the first episode of a new Living The Dream series entitled Marx’s Textbook. In each episode Dave(@withsobersenses) takes a chapter of a basic macroeconomics textbooks – in this case Littleboy (2013) – summarises the content and then presents how Marx can help us think about these issues and challenge the...

In this episode of Living the Dream Jon (@jonpiccini)  and Dave (@withsobersenses) talk with all-round good egg Troy Henderson (@TroyCHenderson) about the idea of a Universal Basic Income.  Troy provides us with an intellectual history and we discuss if it is a techbro attempt to sure up capitalism, a radical social democratic attempt to fix capitalism or if it contains radical elements that point...