Aidan Ricketts
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  • Commentary
    • New year, a time to embrace the uncertainty of it all
    • We could be non-binary
    • Adaptive resilience vs safety paternalism
    • Left wing, right wing? What just happened to politics?
    • Covid, class and the addiction to certainty
    • Neoliberalism, the Life World and the Psychopathic Corporation
    • Democracy is about our bodies, not just our minds
    • What’s your motivation: is it yourself or the change you’re making?
    • 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
    • Earth laws & regional community environmentalism
    • 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
    • A Flood of Emotions – Sydney Ideas Event
    • Participatory democracy in the COVID era – SCU podcast
    • 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
    • Resurgence review
    • Chain Reaction review
    • Plan to Win review

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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Major parties have failed on climate, it’s time to rebel.

On May 11, 2019 · Leave a Comment · In Commentary

Here we are in the late Anthropocene, with an extinction crisis unfolding before our eyes and a rapidly diminishing window to respond to runaway climate change and we are facing a federal election that seems to be about anything other than the very much endangered elephant in the room.

Psychologists […]

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Anthropocene

Elections in the late Anthropocene

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

The recent NSW election has left me wondering when the massively overdue “climate election” is ever going to eventuate in the minds of the population, the media barons and the big corporate donation swilling major parties. With fish kills, record March temperatures, a global epidemic of extinction all around us we […]

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It is the Greens that are defeating the Nats and it’s all about your preferences

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

With an excellent candidate in Sue Higginson and a supercharged community-based campaign the Greens are well on track to take Lismore provided progressive voters use the power of their preferences. Now back to explain why your preferences are so important.

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Australia’s powerhouse of democracy and innovation is in the Northern Rivers

On January 30, 2019 · Leave a Comment · In Commentary

Where else but the Northern Rivers? How many times do you hear or think this?

Have you ever experienced that moment of homecoming when returning from the Gold Coast airport, on the Pacific highway (just near the old ‘tropical fruit world’) where you look over the cane fields towards Wollumbin and something stirs […]

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Is identity politics a problem for the left?

On December 5, 2018 · Leave a Comment · In Commentary

There seems to be a bit of an identity crisis on the left of politics these days. There are big challenges ahead but we seem to be more splintered than ever. We are faced with runaway climate change and rising global fascism. The distribution of wealth is massively tilted in favour of the […]

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The climate emergency and the awful state of Australian politics

On October 31, 2018 · Leave a Comment · In Commentary

The latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is causing a massive collective experience of grief around the globe amongst anyone who has the humility to believe science over stuff that is just made up. The IPCC is actually a pretty amazing thing, it’s the greatest assemblage of the greatest […]

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Liberty, freedom and civil rights? Do any of us understand these things anymore.

On September 17, 2018 · Leave a Comment · In Commentary

Words like freedom, rights and liberty are values that the vast majority of people aspire to for themselves and others yet they remain poorly understood and as a result vulnerable to being manipulated.

When we think of the word liberty or libertarian, sadly many of us we quickly picture gun-toting rednecks from the […]

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  • Recent Posts

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