Aidan Ricketts
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    • Mind over matter: The world of abstraction is driving us to destruction
    • The real threats to our liberty and survival
    • Avoiding the abyss of conspiracy theories
    • The difference between a legal system and a fantasy novel
    • What’s a conspiracy and what’s just common garden variety corruption?
    • Unpredictability, humility and an emerging anthropandemic
    • The trilemma – climate change, economic collapse, and rising fascism
    • Happy New Normal for the decade ahead
    • Fires, liars and climate deniers
    • The race to the bottom in australian politics
    • Talking about lock-on devices – an article in ‘The Conversation’
    • The Ponzi scheme is teetering
    • Regenerative culture a key part of the blockade experience
    • Staying sane in the late Anthropocene
    • Extinction Rebellion
    • Major parties have failed on climate, it’s time to rebel.
    • Elections In The Late Anthropocene
    • It is the Greens that are defeating the Nats and it’s all about your preferences
    • Australia’s powerhouse of democracy and innovation is in the Northern Rivers
    • Is identity politics a problem for the left?
    • The climate emergency and the awful state of Australian politics
    • Liberty, freedom and civil rights? Do any of us understand these things anymore.
    • Democracy and rights under threat in corporate police state
    • The forest wars are back, time to mobilise
    • …more commentary
  • Workshops
    • Newkind Festival: Australia’s masterclass for social change
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    • Greens. Reboot. Future. A weekend of great speakers and big topics
    • Stop CSG Sydney – talk by Aidan Ricketts 25/07/14
    • …more workshops
  • News & Events
    • The lucky country is fast becoming a crime scene
    • Gas body fired up over methane leaks
    • Contaminated sites – CSG/LNG
    • Extreme coal in the UK
    • Activists efforts rewarded in Vanuatu
    • …more news & events
  • Media
    • Activism educator Aidan Ricketts explains how and why protests can be peaceful
    • Bob Brown Is Taking “Shocking” Anti-Protest Laws To The High Court
    • Anti protest laws could arrest nannas, seize tractors
    • “They blinked first”
    • Colin Barnett quick to protest against ‘activism degrees’ – The Australian, 16/10/2014
    • ‘Degrees in activism’ put brake on growth – The Australian, 15/10/2014
    • Magistrate throws out vexatious police case against CSG protesters
    • Outrage over school PR ‘by stealth’- The Northern Star
    • CSG clash a certainty
    • Communities use new tactics
    • Gas group attacks lecturer
    • …more media
  • Activist Resources
    • The Activists’ Handbook
    • The ‘How To Guide’ for declaring your community gasfield free
    • Direct Action and the CSG-Free Community Strategy: an activist training resource
    • Planning and Mapping your Campaign – a guide for local action groups
    • …more resources
  • Reviews
    • The Ecologist review
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    • Plan to Win review

Mind over matter: The world of abstraction is driving us to destruction

On November 7, 2020 · Leave a Comment · In Commentary

Even in our so-called spiritual communities there is an abundance of mind over matter ideologies on offer. How often do you see statements like ‘everything that we are arises in our minds’, ‘our minds create our reality’ and so on. It’s time to call bullshit on these bypasses.

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The real threats to our liberty and survival

On October 24, 2020 · Leave a Comment · In Commentary

Outside of government and politics, corporations are a major threat to our liberty and privacy as they use the internet and our personal devices to surveil our lives, largely with our willing participation and build profiles on our consumption patterns, social lives and preferences.

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Avoiding the abyss of conspiracy theories

On September 9, 2020 · Leave a Comment · In Commentary

Normally we hope that crisis brings the best out in people: cooperation, mutual aid and empathy. This seems to be true of bushfires and floods but something about this pandemic is driving a divisiveness that is making our lives feel more unhinged and conflicted than ever.

Social media has begun to feel like […]

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The difference between a legal system and a fantasy novel

On August 7, 2020 · Leave a Comment · In Commentary

What is ironic about these so-called sovereign citizen raves is that they actually hold the legal system in naively high regard. Despite appearing to challenge the system, they are actually predicated on the assumption that the legal system has such immutable internal logic and moral integrity that the mere revealing of a fundamental flaw will cause it to voluntarily disband itself. This is the fantasy novel aspect.

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What’s a conspiracy and what’s just common garden variety corruption?

On June 5, 2020 · Leave a Comment · In Commentary

Oh dear, it’s become very strange of late. Lock down, isolation, social media and fear have provided  fertile ground for all manner of weird theories about the state of the world.

Now let’s be clear. The world is not in good shape. For a start we have a massive problem with climate change, […]

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Unpredictability, humility and an emerging anthropandemic

On March 4, 2020 · Leave a Comment · In Commentary

Just like the droughts and bushfires have confirmed the dire warnings scientists have been issuing for decades about what to expect from climate chaos, so too does the emergence of a potential anthropandemic virus whether coronavirus or any number of later anthropandemics serve as a warning of the future we are approaching.

[…]

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The trilemma: climate change, economic collapse, and rising fascism

On February 12, 2020 · Leave a Comment · In Commentary

Climate chaos would be problematic enough if we were able to stand and face it with intact systems of democratic governance and an economic system capable of adaptive resilience. Unfortunately we are instead faced with a truly dysfunctional trilemma of climate chaos, rising global fascism, and an economic system that continues to defy […]

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Happy New Normal for the decade ahead

On January 16, 2020 · Leave a Comment · In Commentary

It has been palpably difficult to utter the words ‘happy new year’ this time around. The sense of foreboding as the clock of linear time clicks from one decade to another is that we stand at the beginning of our own great reckoning.

Yes fires, the most intensely embodied sign that climate chaos […]

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Fires, liars and climate deniers

On December 16, 2019 · Leave a Comment · In Commentary

Even for those of us who have had the intelligence and humility to heed the scientists and have been expecting catastrophic climate events, these fires have shocked us.  ‘A rapid onset apocalypse’ is how a friend described it.

After thirty or more years of warnings catastrophe is upon us in what is only […]

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The race to the bottom in Australian politics

On November 2, 2019 · Leave a Comment · In Commentary

It is tragic but Labor itself is becoming an impediment to progressive politics in this country by enabling the slide into right wing populism. There’s more to politics than gaining government, it’s also about defending good policy between elections, and holding your ground.

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Screen shot from The Conversation article: ‘Lock-on devices’ are a symbol of non-violent protest, but they might soon be banned in Queensland

Talking about lock-on devices – an article in The Conversation

On October 2, 2019 · Leave a Comment · In Commentary, Media

As a tool of non-violent civil-disobedience, using “lock-on” devices avoids risking group stand-offs with police, which can end up worse than rugby scrums. These devices certainly cause inconvenience, but it’s difficult to imagine how a person with one or both hands locked into a device could be anything but non-violent.

[…]

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The Ponzi scheme is teetering

On September 5, 2019 · Leave a Comment · In Commentary

There is so much one could write about at the moment. We are living in a ‘pick your own apocalypse’ kind of theme park. What will it be, global fascism, nuclear war, economic and social collapse or climate catastrophe?

Well my bet is that the major economic collapse is going to rearrange […]

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Regenerative culture a key part of the blockade experience

On August 20, 2019 · Leave a Comment · In Commentary

As thousands of people discovered at Camp Liberty at the Bentley blockade there is more to protests and blockades than potential confrontation with the corporate police state. If you have any time at all to travel in the near future do yourself and the planet a favour and visit camp Binbee, permanent […]

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colourful watercolour world map

Staying sane in the late Anthropocene

On July 24, 2019 · Leave a Comment · In Commentary

I can’t personally remember a more insane and dangerous time in world and domestic politics. We watch almost helplessly as the sixth great extinction, this time caused by humans, ravages life on this planet. No matter how graphic the reality of the climate and extinction crisis becomes, there seems to be two […]

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Aidan at ER mtg Lismore 29-5-19.

Extinction Rebellion

On June 2, 2019 · Leave a Comment · In Commentary

Die-in at Lismore City Hall

Well our trip on the Titanic just got a lot more dire.

I’m relieved the election season is over so we can get back to talking and thinking about bigger picture things, but I’m aghast at how our federal and state elections turned out. I […]

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