En Passant

Photo: Jason South

Damien Hooper, whether he realises it or not, has given us a glimpse of an alternative future where our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander brothers and sisters can be proud of their history and their resistance and join with the exploited working class in a new society of freedom and equity where their history and culture is celebrated and respected, not repressed and hidden away.

Any genuine policy to provide the needs of people with chronic disease or disabilities could, and should, make them accessible through improvements to Medicare. A universal health scheme which pays for the actual needs of people, not just those the government deems worthy of funding, is what we need. See more at: http://www.sa.org.au/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=7426%3Apeople-with-disabilities-need-free-universal-health-care-not-the-ndis&Itemid=393

Within the struggle you start to make links with every kind of struggle over social problems in your society but also internationally, that everyone is living the same crisis, everyone has the same shitty governments.

Both nationalism and cheating are an integral part of the modern Olympic Games, as are commercialism and the repressive measures used by host governments to “clean up” their cities. The cheating and repression that characterise the Games are a logical conclusion of sport under capitalism.

As Vashti Kenway, spokesperson for the defendants told the press: “This is a huge victory for the right to protest, and in particular the right to protest in solidarity with the Palestinians. We stood and raised our voices for Palestine in a public place, which should be the right of every Melbournian and every person across Australia.”

I slept in and missed the Olympics. Well, the opening anyway. Too bad I can’t sleep in for the next two weeks and miss the whole nationalistic claptrap that this event for big companies promulgates.

Soviet power, which existed for only a few brief years before it was destroyed by Stalinism, proved the central claim of Marxism: workers can become conscious of their interests and can lead a socialist revolution. The soviets were the actualisation of the potential inherent in the working class. They united the working class in democratic bodies. They allowed the working class to intersect with and lead other sections of society, such as the soldiers and peasants. They provided a forum for both discussion and action. They gave workers a huge amount of power – and all of these factors raised the political consciousness of the Russian working class to the level of revolutionary socialism. This was the greatest triumph of the Russian Revolution.

Given the electoral unpopularity of the GST in the 1990s, the Coalition will be careful about the way it deals with the tax. But make no mistake. Its goal is to increase the GST and expand it, probably in the longer term but possibly short term, especially if the economy tanks when they are in power.

Millions will enjoy the Olympics for the sport. But it’s the field day for fat cats that we could do without.