1. How do you get your news?
For me, social media acts as a kind of informal news aggregator: friends and political activists provide me with a daily summary of what’s happening and what it might mean, drawn from both mainstream and non-mainstream sources. Otherwise, I rarely watch television, but I sometimes watch news and current affairs on ABC and SBS (eg. 4 Corners, Dateline and Foreign Correspondent); I also sometimes listen to radio (ABC, 3CR).
2. The best thing about News Corp is …
… its demise.
3. What issue should be number one on Australia’s political agenda?
Apart from the urgent necessity of a Collingwood premiership in 2015, the usual: the struggle to create an egalitarian society in harmony with non-human nature.
4. If you could force the PM to work one day in another job, which job would nominate for him?
I would force the PM to perform the role of an arch-villain in a TV drama (one who receives a richly-deserved comeuppance).
5. What is the best/worst tweet you’ve ever seen?
For the best tweets, almost anything by @MYSADCAT; for the worst tweets, almost anything inspired by one of The Daily Stormer’s hate campaigns.
6. What are you reading at the moment?
All sorts of things online, but otherwise mostly books and journal articles about Australian politics and history with a particular focus upon the far right. I also read lots about anarchism and some crime fiction.
7. Who would you like to get stuck in an elevator with and why?
My cat. (He’s excellent company.)
8. What’s the weirdest thing you have in your house?
A commitment to world-wide proletarian revolution with unlicensed pleasure as its only goal.
9. You get drunk with Joe Hockey at a Liberal Party fundraiser and he agrees to let you change one thing in the budget, what do you change?
Quadrupling the dole.
10. The headline you’d most like to see on the front of a daily newspaper?
Collingwood Wins Fifth Straight Premiership In A Row As State And Capital Crumble In Face of Workers’ Revolt.
11. Corniest joke you’ve ever heard?
Q. Why can’t anarchists draw straight lines? A. Because they don’t believe in rulers.
12. If you were offered, say, a $60,000 scholarship to study anywhere in the world, where would you go?
Barcelona in 1936.
13. You’re Andrew Bolt for the day, what crazy right-wing conspiracy theory would you advance?
Martin Bryant is innocent; it was MOSSAD what done it (on behalf of the UN).
14. Cat person or dog person?
Cat. (But I do like dogs.)
15. What’s the best dish you can cook?
Revenge.
16. Which Australian thinker or leader inspires you?
Australia has thinkers? Seriously though, I can think of very few Australian thinkers or leaders who inspire me. The people I find most inspirational are ordinary folk who demonstrate intelligence, compassion and a commitment to sustaining life and transforming our society into one that sustains and nurtures it for all.
17. Favourite movie?
Too many to list but the 1965 Polish film The Saragossa Manuscript holds a special place. I saw it many years ago – late one night on SBS, naturally – and the complex, phantastic narrative really captured my imagination. Either that, or Inglourious Basterds, of course.
18. If you could take one person from history on a date, who would it be?
Josephine Baker.
19. What image should hang on the wall of the PM’s office?
‘The Funeral (Dedicated to Oskar Panizza)’ by George Grosz.
20. Guest question (from Tim Anderson): What uplifts your soul?
Creative resistance to injustice, blissful music and love.
21. What question would you like to see the next person asked?
How do you cope with loss and heartbreak?
* Andy Fleming is the man behind the popular site slackbastard. On any given day, you'll find him writing about Nazis, Storm Fronters or Crazy People.
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