Think about ethical consumerism – is it a ‘con’?
Cultural theorist Slavoj Zizek on ethical consumerism

Check out this scathing (highbrow but funny) animation making a point about Fairtrade, and beyond …

Click here to view the embedded video.

For more information about the Convention: Click here (scroll down this link)

Let us know if you’re coming by emailing mail@justact.org.au

The Issue

This month we are asking you to think about marketing and media manipulation. You might even want to turn up to a Convention on these issues.

Fairtrade and beyond

We are all conscious that over-consumption is bad for the environment and can be bad for our health; but our economic system is permanently set to ‘growth at any cost’. In an age of ‘spin’ we are bombarded with information and images that push us to consume more. Are we immune to the spin tactics of people in the marketing and advertising industries, or are we kidding ourselves?

At JustAct we have focussed a lot on ethical consumerism – everything from holidays to Fairtrade certified footballs. We will continue to do this; but sometimes it is worth thinking about these kinds of issues more deeply.

Organisations such as Fairtrade urge us to ethically consume. Is this possible? Or are even these well-meaning schemes just another marketing tool to keep us feeling good about the way our economy works?

Cultural theorist Slavoj Zizek (who has recently written a provocative book with prominent UK theologian John Milbank) has been asking some serious questions about the nature of consumerism. Check out Action x 1  to have a look at the clip.

Milbank says that fair trade initiatives can be positive:

“Things like the economy of fair-traded food-items may not sound dramatic or decisive and indeed they remain pathetically marginal and often compromised, but nevertheless the extension of such gift-exchange bit by bit is the sure way forward rather than revolution, government action alone or else capitalistic solutions. Groups linking across the globe can ensure that something is given back to the earth and that genuine goods go into planetary circulation.”

Kids – a marketing tool?

Melinda Tankard Reist is a well known expert on sexualisation of children through marketing. As an author (Getting Real: Challenging the Sexualisation of Girls), speaker, commentator, blogger and advocate for women and girls. She is a strong supporter for ethical marketing; particularly in relation to children.

Photo: Tankard Reist

Tankard Reist is a critic of what is termed ‘raunch culture’. She controversially says that the cause of women has gone backwards since the ‘second wave’ of feminism. She was a founder of the organisation ‘Collective Shout’; it ‘names and shames’ companies that inappropriately use sexualised images of young girls in their marketing. Her popular blog (http://melindatankardreist.com/) covers controversial topics on a regular basis.

Are kids being used as marketing tools? Leave a comment below and tell us how you feel (see ‘Leave a reply’ at the bottom of the page).

Spin convention coming up

Some exciting speakers and workshop leaders will join the Justice and International Mission Unit of the Uniting Church for their upcoming Convention “Consuming Passions: Consuming Us?” Although aimed at an older audience, this will be an ideal event to attend for Christians and others who want to hear more about these issues.

In addition to Melinda Tankard Reist, there will be some great speakers, workshop leaders and panellists, including:

• Jane Caro is a well known communications consultant who has been a regular panellist on the ABC program ‘The Gruen Transfer’. She is also a lecturer in Advertising Creative at the School of Communication Arts at the University of Western Sydney. She will be part of a provocative panel discussion: ‘Are there such things as ethical consumption and ethical marketing?’

• Cameron Neil is an advocate for the Fairtrade labelling; which guarantees a better deal for third world producers. Theologians such as John Milbank in the UK are supporters, but others say the system does not address the root causes of poverty for producers of commodities like tea and coffee. Neil will be sure to add some interest to the panel discussion on ethical consumption.

Find out about going – at Action x 2

Share your thoughts about spin, the advertising and marketing industry and ethical consumerism

The cover reads “Just like Peter Crouch…we’re young, hot and have slept with prostitutes.“ Yes, it’s a weekly gossip magazine. Yes, like most girls, I’m guilty of reading it. And yes, even I surprised myself to have found within, inspiration for this blog!

More here

The controversial and much hyped Channel 7 documentary ‘Such is Life’ has attracted much discussion and debate. For those of us who work daily with individuals and families seeking to rebuild lives damaged by dependant or chaotic drug use, over the years the Cousins’ case elicits conflicting responses.

Your Cousin

More – article from Moreland Hall

HOW to cook a meal, find a stable home, make new friends: these are some of the ingredients to crime-free life after prison.

At least the first is being attended to in one of our prisons (”Jailhouse wok shock”, August 24).

It is understandable that some victims of crime are upset that offenders are learning how to cook in this way.

However, most prisoners will leave prison.

Those offenders who have learnt skills such as cooking, and who are supported to lead a crime-free life by assisting them to get decent housing and make new friends, will be much less likely to offend again.

Not all prisoners are monsters. We need to provide hope in addition to punishment. This will make our community safer.

Mark Zimsak, Melbourne

Justice & International Mission, Commission for Mission
Uniting Church in Australia, Synod of Victoria and Tasmania

In response to: http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/jailhouse-masterchef-shock/story-e6frf7kx-1225909131331

One Award recipient will receive a $4000 grant to continue their work.  Encouragement Awards up to $1000 are also offered.

These awards are a great way for young people to receive recognition for the work they are doing in the community.

Last year’s recipients were two young women Sarah Elston and Caitlin Grigsby who founded the Blue Stockings Association. The Blue Stockings Association provides women in Gippsland, who are pursuing further education the opportunity to gain scholarships to help them in their endeavours.

‘I would like to highlight what an injection of faith the award has had been for us…..it’s very easy to forget what you are trying to achieve but its little things like these awards that make such a huge difference.’ Caitlin Grigsby.

This year the awards are delighted to have the support of SHARE and UCA Funds Management.

For more information or two download an application form visit www.connections.org.au/anti-poverty or call the Connections Communications and Fundraising Department on 03 9271 0800.

Make Poverty History are asking for assistance

MELBOURNE – 2 MASSIVE STUNTS THIS AUGUST

28TH AUGUST Saturday – VIC MARKET GLOBAL HEALTH DAY

JOIN OUR CARNIVAL TEAM AND get a free Make Poverty T-shirt

Requirements: 30 Volunteers to join our Make Poverty History Carnival team at the Market and help manage Wheel of Life and Wishing Tree installations

Where: Queen Victorian Market – meet outside the food court

Date: Saturday 28th August

Time: Any time you can help between 7.00 am and 1 pm

Status: Tell all your friends and come along to spin the wheel of life or declare your hopes for the world on our Wishing Tree

More information

• arrest warrants were issued in late 2007 against the four members of the Filipino security forces responsible for the abduction and torture of Pastor Berlin Guerrero on 27 May 2007;
• Fr Thadeus Nguyen Van Ly, a Vietnamese Catholic priest, was imprisoned on October 2001 with a sentence of 15 years (his ‘crime’ was writing a submission to the US Commission on International Religious Freedom and the Congressional Human Rights Caucus) but Fr Thadeus was subsequently released in 2004 after an international campaign for his release;
• in late 2006, three Muslim men were tried and convicted in Indonesia for the 29 October 2005 murders of three Christian teenage school girls who were beheaded with machetes as they were walking home from school in Poso, Central Sulawesi (a fourth girl escaped with wounds);
• Joel Flores, accused of having murdered United Church of Christ in the Philippines (UCCP) member Jose Doton (gunned down by two men on a motorcycle on 16 May 2006), was brought to trial for the murder on 3 October 2007 (it was the first case of the murder of a UCCP member since 2004 in which someone has been arrested for murder and brought to trial); and,
• Pastor Rinaldy Damanik, who was released from imprisonment in Indonesia on false weapons charges in November 2004 (he received 76,000 letters of support internationally while he was in prison).

Murders Most Foul – More Church workers murdered in the Philippines

Prepared July/August 2010

Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute – Proverbs 31:8

For he that is condemned for the name of the Lord God is an holy martyr, a brother of the Lord, the son of the Highest, a receptacle of the Holy Spirit, by whom every one of the faithful has received the illumination of the glory of the holy Gospel, by being vouchsafed the incorruptible crown, and the testimony of Christ’s sufferings, and the fellowship of His blood, to be made conformable to the death of Christ for the adoption of children - Constitutions of the Holy Apostles (4th / 5th Centuries)

On 14 June at around 4:30 pm Benjamin E. Bayles was waiting for a ride at the crossing Sitio Antolo, Brgy. Suay when two men wearing helmets on board a black Honda TMX 155 with no license plate stopped nearby. The back rider disembarked and walked towards Benjamin. About 3 meters away from him, the gunman shot him several times. When Benjamin fell down, the driver of the motorcycle also got off the motorcycle and shot him. His body had 25 bullet wounds and 21 bullets in it when an autopsy was conducted.

Then the perpetrators left the area on the motorcycle. Bystanders took Benjamin to the Valeriano Gatuslao District Hospital but he was pronounced dead-on-arrival. Among the bystanders who witnessed the incident was a government employee who immediately called someone he knew from the Himamaylan City Philippine National Police (PNP) to report the incident. The Himamaylan City PNP alerted the nearby Kabankalan City PNP who set up a check point and apprehended Roger Bahon and Ronnie Caurino. Two .45 caliber pistols were confiscated from the suspects.

Mr Bayles was a 43 year old, single, parish worker of the Independent Church of the Philippines and a member of the September 21 Movement and the Negros Federation of Sugar Workers.

The Kabankalan police initially said the suspects confessed to be “organic” members of the 61st Infantry Battalion of the Philippines Army. The two were turned over to the Himamaylan PNP and are now detained at the Himamaylan City Jail.

The Himamaylan PNP later retracted the statement from the Kabankalan police, claiming the suspects are not connected with the military.

Benjamin had taken part in many human rights fact-finding missions. He had received a number of death threats before his murder.

The bishop of the Diocese of the Independent Church of the Philippines in which Benjamin Bayles was a member, The Right Rev Felomino Ang, wrote in response to the murder “In this moment of grief and rage, as your bishop, I am calling all the ordained and the faithful to be prayerful and vigilant that the death of Benjie Bayles will be given justice and the killers and their handlers will be convicted. We have already offered many lives in the altar of liberation, let this be our inspiration to immerse ourselves deeper to struggle for genuine freedom and peace based on justice. As One Body of Christ, let us intimately renew our commitment with the struggling masses. Break the culture of silence and let our cries be heard “Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute” (Proverbs 31:8)”.

On 15 June, Jovelito Agustin, a lay minister in the Philippine Independent Church, was murdered in Bacarra, Ilocos Norte. He was also a broadcaster who spoke out for the rights of workers. He was also the Diocesan President of the Laymen of the Iglesia Filipina Independiente in the Diocese of Laoag. Jovelito was on his way home on-board his motorcycle after an evening broadcast when two motorcycle riding gunmen overtook him along the highway and shot him several times. He was rushed to hospital where he died.

He had received death threats before his murder.

Funeral of Benjamin Bayles

Take Action Now: points to include in your email (see below – You Can Help)

Points to make in your email:

• Express deep concern at the murder of Benjamin Bayles on 14 June by two gun men.
• Request an immediate, impartial and credible joint investigation by the Himamaylan and Kabankalan PNP into the murder of Benjamin E. Bayles.
• Ask for the immediate filing of criminal charges against Ronnie L. Caurino and Roger M. Bajon and anyone else found to have been involved in planning or carrying out the murder.
• Also express concern at the murder of Jovelito Agustin, a lay minister in the Philippine Independent Church, on 15 June.
• Ask what progress has been made in identifying his murderers and bringing them to justice.

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The way of death is persecution of the good, pursuing revenge, not pitying a poor man, not labouring for the afflicted, advocating for the rich, lawlessly judging the poor. Be delivered, children, from all this.

(Didache, late first/early second century) (Paraphrased)

On Sunday 16 May, Samson “Mike” Rivera, an active member of the United Church of Christ in the Philippines (UCCP), was shot dead shortly before he was to attend a church service in Calapan. He got out of a car at 9:15 am in front of the Calapan United Evangelical Church when two men shot him in the head and chest.

Mike Rivera was the Chairperson of the UCCP United Evangelical Church in Calapan City, member of the council of the UCCP Mindoro Conference (a ‘Conference’ being a regional grouping of churches in the UCCP, similar to a Presbytery in the Uniting Church in Australia) and a well known anti-mining activist. He was an office bearer in the non-government organisation Kaunsayan Formation for Community Development (Kafcode), which advocates for environmental protection amongst other things. His wife, Doris, is currently director for Kafcode. Mike Rivera worked for the provincial government. The UCCP has condemned his brutal murder.

Mike Rivera, Martyr

If you are concerned about where your Senate preferences will be going with a vote above the ballot paper line this election, why not consider voting ‘below the line’.

This idea produces for many images of hours wasted organising and numbering the boxes on a Senate ballot paper the size of a small car only to discover at the last minute that you’ve missed a box or two, however the process doesn’t need to be that daunting.

By visiting the Below the Line website, www.belowtheline.org.au, you can find out who will be preferenced in your ‘above the line’ vote and, if you aren’t completely happy with this, easily reorder your preferences for a ‘below the line’ vote. You can then print out the result to take with you to the booth on election day.

Scott Stephens (ABC online)

The current federal election campaign is distinguished – or disfigured, to be more accurate – by the haste with which both candidates have abandoned their political convictions in order to claim the political centre-ground.

– in the best piece of political writing during the current election period Scott Stephens, the Religion and Ethics editor for ABC Online (and former minister with the Uniting Church) takes aim at politics gone wrong.

The financial breakdown – women in prison

$80.6 million over four years had been allocated in this year’s State Budget to ensure the women’s prison system could cope with the increased demand and another $26 million had been allocated for programs aimed at reducing recidivism.

- Corrections Victoria spokeswoman in the Herald Sun (check out our fact sheet and take action)

Norway shows the way

Within two years of their release, 20% of Norway’s prisoners end up back in jail. In the U.K. and the U.S., the figure hovers between 50% and 60%.

- (in Time Magazine) (also see “Britain’s Prisons: Will Spending Cuts Increase Crime?”)

Risk from ‘outsiders’

Both political parties are using the language of protection in a dangerous manner. Both the Government and the Opposition are making these statements (on asylum seekers) as if Australia is at imminent risk from some outside source.

- Toowoomba Catholic Diocese’s Social Justice Commission (SJC) executive officer Dr Mark Copland

Unions on the nose with both major parties

Abbott wants to destroy the trade unions. Gillard is happy to recognise the unions but make them largely impotent. Both reflect a visceral dislike of trade unions in the community – despite the fact that the last time there was a wages breakout causing economic instability was 1979. The financial system is a better scapegoat now.

– Kenneth Davidson in The Age (check out UCA church as employer principles)