En Passant

Prominent past and present Labor politicians, liberal literati and ALP well-wishers in the Murdoch press have been complaining for years about the influence of factions inside the party writes Rick Kuhn in Red Flag.

Whether this whingeing is accompanied by calls to curb connections with the unions or not, it is part of a campaign to liquidate Labor’s links with its working class base. That would turn the ALP into a pastel version of the deep blue Liberal Party, the equivalent of the US Democratic Party, another straightforward party of big business.

Barnaby Joyce: “This is not thousands of dollars. This is hundreds of dollars.” Like the $900 Peter Slipper claimed for his alleged wine tour you mean? Treat Brandis and Joyce like Slipper. Put them on trial too.

This silence looks to me like complicity on the part of the Abbott government in the deaths of at least 22 asylum seekers. ‘If you want to seek sanctuary from war, rape, genocide, murder, torture, as is your right, this Australian government will not help you. We will dance on your grave.’ That seems to be the logic of Abbott on the run from reporters and their questions about this latest disaster.

Working class parents, their kids and childcare workers all have the same interests: high quality, free and accessible child care, provided by workers who are treated with respect and paid a decent wage.

The IPCC is clear. Climate change is real. It is a result of human activity (read capitalism and the way production for profit is organised.) The time to act is now; not the irrelevant discourse of a price on carbon or direct action that the parties of neoliberalism sprout but a real globally focussed program of action to address the existential threat to humanity and, for those short term profiteers, capitalism itself. It looks to me that only a democratic planned economy based on satisfying human need can do that. That is socialism.

There is an alternative to finding new ways to tax workers and the poor. There is an alternative to the Goods and Services Tax. Tax the rich.

My interview on Tuesday morning with Sharon Firebrace on Razor Sharp on 3KND. http://sharonfirebrace.com/2013/09/24/john-passant-australian-national-university-canberra-6/

The horror in Kenya is a direct product of Western intervention writes Ken Olende in Socialist Worker UK.

Bill Shorten says the era of the Messiah is over. Yeah. Very naught boys rule, OK?

The Bureau of Investigative Journalism carries the following estimates for the numbers killed by US drones, including those on Obama’s watch since 2009.